Cynthia joins Alexis Madrigal on San Fransisco's KQED FORUM to talk truth, beauty and bouillabaisse.
Cynthia joins Adam Conover for his always-fascinating Factually! podcast.
Kirkus includes The Sound of the Sea on this great list of "8 Nonfiction Books to Read This Summer."
The Sound of the Sea is recommended summer reading in The New York Times. "Will have you marveling at nature."
A starred review for The Sound of the Sea in Kirkus. "An absolutely captivating nature book."
RAIN named a finalist for the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
RAIN one of NPR Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2015
RAIN one of the Boston Globe's Best Books of 2015
RAIN in the Miami Herald's Favorite Books of 2015
RAIN in the Tampa Bay Times Favorite Books of 2015
RAIN named one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Nonfiction Books of 2015
RAIN is longlisted for the National Book Award
The UK's Guardian on RAIN and Cynthia Barnett's gift for communicating science to a general audience
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on the "highly readable, science-laden biography" of RAIN
The Financial Times on an "eye-opening book for the most fervent rain-hater"
The Dallas Morning News review of RAIN, "vivid and lyrical prose that is leavened with humor"
"Seriously fascinating," Elizabeth Royte's review of RAIN in Elle
Dani Shapiro's review of "delicious" RAIN in More magazine
Tom Ashbrook's crazy-fun interview with Cynthia, NPR's On Point
The Miami Herald review recommends RAIN to Florida's climate-change-uncertain governor
The Tampa Bay Times on "fascinating" RAIN
April 2015 Goodreads calls RAIN one of the best new books of the month
March 2015 The Seattle Times recommends RAIN on its spring reading list
January 2015 Publishers Weekly names RAIN among Top 10 Science Books for Spring
Barnett’s beautifully written book envelops the reader in warm shower of intriguing history and fascinating science. Anyone who looks longingly at rain clouds, rejoices in a spring downpour, or frets about drought, will love Rain.
Like the weather, there's no predicting the delightful and sometimes disturbing surprises waiting on every page of Rain. Whether she's writing about Mesopotamia or the Met Office, Cynthia Barnett illuminates the hidden connections that tie our fate to a precious resource we neglect at our peril.
A book of unexpected connections and wonderful surprises. It will give you more respect for every rainstorm you experience, and more joy in the raindrops.
If you care about this planet, you're lucky that Cynthia Barnett writes so elegantly and intelligently about the stuff that falls on it. It's kind of ironic -- like rain on your wedding day? -- that the folly of mankind's relentless efforts to control the earth's water has inspired Barnett's best work yet.
Brilliant, insightful, and beautifully written. Raindrops are prisms through which we see the surprising and profound connections among water, human history, and our uncertain future.
Rain -- the thing the weatherman frowns about -- is one of the planet's great pulses, as this marvelous book makes clear.
Read it now, recalling the rainstorms we grew up with, and anticipating the harsh new rainfall that's coming our way on a warming globe.
Rain is one of those uncommonly wonderful books that are both highly significant and deeply pleasurable to read. As we face into the coming time of storms, of flood and drought, nothing will be more important than rain. So all gratitude to Cynthia Barnett for writing a book that is clear, surprising, and filled with fascination.
Captivating and compelling, a delightful celebration of precipitation that is brimming with insight. Whether you’re desperate for more of it or you just wish it would stop, you’ll never think of rain in the same way again.
Rain is one of the most elegant and absorbing books ever written about the natural world. Writing with grace and imagination, Cynthia Barnett takes you on a journey into the heart of the most elemental force in our lives. Her exploration of our watery world looks unflinchingly at the many tomorrows to come when the chance of rain is uncertain. An important, revelatory, and thoroughly wondrous book.
A multifaceted examination of the science, the art, the technology and even the smell of rain throughout history... Highlights the severity of some of our environmental problems with knowledge, humor, urgency and hope.
A seamless blending of personal narrative with scientific and cultural explanations... Fans of Mary Roach will recognize a similar ease of style and interjection of wit... Accessible to every reader, from the environmental scientist to the parent choosing whether their child needs to wear a raincoat that day.
A spectacularly vivid, all-encompassing history of rain... Like John McPhee, Jared Diamond, and Elizabeth Kolbert, Barnett illuminates a crucial subject with knowledge, energy, conviction, and a passion for mind-expanding facts and true stories.
Barnett beautifully evokes universal themes of connecting cycles of water, air, wind, and earth to humankind across time and culture, leaving readers contemplating their deeper ties with the natural world.
September 26th 2012 Alternet's Q&A with Cynthia on Blue Revolution and a water ethic for America.
May 14th 2012 National Geographic's Water Currents blog talks about Cynthia and her books, calling Blue Revolution and Mirage "elegant, inspirational, indispensable."
May 5th 2012 Joseph Cooper of Miami's NPR station WLRN talks with Cynthia about Blue Revolution for his program Topical Currents.
March 22nd 2012 National Geographic's Water Currents blog recommends five water books for World Water Day, including Blue Revolution.
March-April 2012 edition of Utne Reader excerpts Blue Revolution.
February 24th 2012 Blue Living Ideas names Blue Revolution one of its top 5 recommended water-conservation books.
January 12th 2012 Jacksonville's Florida Times Union reviews Blue Revolution.
January-February 2012 edition of Utne Reader reviews Blue Revolution.
December 18th 2011 The Boston Globe names Blue Revolution one of its Top 10 Science Books of 2011.
November 22nd 2011 Western science writer John Fleck writes about Cynthia and Blue Revolution in a 1-A Albuquerque Journal piece, "Getting to Know the River We Depend On."
November 15th 2011 Susan Moran, host of "How On Earth: The KGNU Science Show" on KGNU Denver-Boulder, interviews Cynthia about Blue Revolution.
October 28th 2011 The LA Times review of Blue Revolution, by Emily Green.
October 28th 2011 Scientific American's blog reviews Blue Revolution.
October 27th 2011: Interview with Cynthia about Blue Revolution on the New Hampshire Public Radio program The Exchange.
October 5th 2011 Rob Lorei talks with Cynthia about Blue Revolution on Tampa WMNF's Radioactivity program.
October 3rd 2011 Time magazine's feature story "Droughtbusters" quotes Cynthia and Blue Revolution.
October 2nd 2011 The Boston Globe review of Blue Revolution, by Anthony Doerr.
October 2nd 2011 Cynthia and her books are featured in the op-ed, Blue Muse: Writers inspired by North Florida Waters.
Hank Conner interviews Cynthia about Blue Revolution for Florida NPR station WUFT's book show, Conner Calling.
September 22nd 2011: Interview with Cynthia about Blue Revolution on Wisconsin Public Radio's Joy Cardin Show.
September 15th 2011 The Library Journal review of Blue Revolution.
August 24th 2011 On Earth magazine review of Blue Revolution.
May 23rd 2011 Publisher's Weekly review of Blue Revolution.
Mirage
St. Petersburg Times, October 14, 2007
Midwest Book Review, July 2007
Dayton Daily News, July 15, 2007
Publisher's Weekly (starred review) April 30, 2007
Library Journal, April 15, 2007
In the days before the Internet, books like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and Marjory Stoneman Douglas' River of Grass were groundbreaking calls to action that made citizens and politicians take notice. Mirage is such a book.
Mirage is a well-researched, well-written book. It definitely ranks up there with the late Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert, which mesmerized me just about 20 years ago. I could not put Mirage down.
With lively prose and a journalist’s eye for a good story, Cynthia Barnett offers a sobering account of water scarcity
problems facing Florida – one of our wettest states – and the rest of the East Coast. Drawing on lessons learned from the American West, Mirage uses the lens of cultural attitudes about water use and misuse to plead for reform. Sure to engage and fascinate as it informs.
Mirage is the finest general study to date of the freshwater-supply crisis in Florida. Well-meaning villains abound in Cynthia Barnett's story, but so, too, do heroes, such as Arthur R. Marshall Jr., Nathaniel Reed, and Marjorie Harris Carr. The author's research is as thorough as her prose is graceful. Drinking water is the new oil. Get used to it.
Never before has the case been more compellingly made that America's dependence on a free and abundant water supply has become an illusion. Cynthia Barnett does it by telling us the stories of the amazing personalities behind our water wars, the stunning contradictions that allow the wettest state to have the most watered lawns, and the thorough research that makes her conclusionsinescapable. Barnett has established herself as one of Florida's best journalists and Mirage is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the state.
