Storm Kings: The Untold History of America’s First Tornado Chasers
by Lee Sandlin
read by Andrew Garman
2013

This is AMAZING! I had expected it to be vaguely interesting, enough to keep me entertained on my commute without being a problem to stop whenever I arrived. I had also expected it to be about modern storm chasers. Instead, it was utterly fascinating and surprisingly funny and I had to turn it off occasionally when I got to tricky intersections in my driving because the story was too distracting. For about two weeks, I started the majority of conversations with “In this book about weather….” because it just filled my thoughts and I wanted to share the fascination with everyone around me.

Via the focus on tornadoes, the book covers the development of weather research in the United States from colonial days to the present, following the work of maybe a dozen pivotal individuals driving tornado research. And let me tell you: the people who dedicate years, decades, or whole lives to the study of tornadoes are some truly fascinating characters!

Tornadoes by themselves are interesting phenomenon, but more than that, the books focus on tornadoes gives an amazing perspective on a wide range of history of the United States and the history of scientific studies in general, allowing the book to cover a wide range of issues without ever getting too far away from the primary topic. The book touches on Benjamin Franklin’s famous lightning experiment, the establishment of the Smithsonian, the displacement of American Indians, various arctic explorations, the great dust bowl, and a number of wars, all while discussing how these specifically related to the study of tornadoes. Sandlin does a really amazing job of covering long time periods succinctly and then covering specific events in minute-by-minute detail, and not letting the story he’s telling get bogged down in either.

The book also felt rather timely, as the current news reports storms and deaths and political decisions that interfered with factual weather knowledge, because it turns out that none of that is new or unusual to the weather service. This book is full of storms and deaths and the politics that go into deciding which facts to look at and which theories to believe. But it’s also distant enough to not be just one more bit of depressing news.

Overall, this book was fascinating and funny and horrifying and jaw-dropping, and I highly recommend it. Also the reader for the audio book is excellent.