The story of a single snowflakefrom its creation in the clouds to its fallin fascinating photographs and details.

**The Financial Times' Travel Book of the Year 2018** How many snowflakes does it take to build a snowman? Where is the snowiest place on Earth? When will the last snowflake fall? Snow has a lot in common with religion. It comes from heaven. It changes everything. It creates an alternative reality and brings on irrational behaviour in humans. But unlike most religions, snow has never had a bible, until now. Giles Whittell, a passionate snow enthusiast, takes the reader on a quest through centuries and continents to reveal the wonders of snow. Along the way he uncovers the mysteries of snow crystal morphology, why avalanches happen, how snow saved a British prime minister's life, and the terrifying truth about the opening ceremony of the 1960 winter Olympics. The Secret Life of Snow is the next best thing to a white Christmas, an anthropology and travelogue for everyone from ski addicts to the millions of people who have never even seen it.

A cute giftbook packed with glorious color microphotography of real snow crystals by Dr. Snow—Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht. His photos of snowflakes have appeared in National Geographic, the New York Times, and on Martha Stewart’s TV show, as well as numerous other places. This thick “cube” book is packed with a blizzard’s worth of amazing images as well as literary quotes on the beauty of snow.

Lily is the daughter of a humble farmer, and to her family she is just another expensive mouth to feed. Then the local matchmaker delivers startling news: if Lily's feet are bound properly, they will be flawless. In nineteenth-century China, where a woman's eligibility is judged by the shape and size of her feet, this is extraordinary good luck. Lily now has the power to make a good marriage and change the fortunes of her family. To prepare for her new life, she must undergo the agonies of footbinding, learn nu shu, the famed secret women's writing, and make a very special friend, Snow Flower. But a bitter reversal of fortune is about to change everything.

"Despite substantial, cross-disciplinary interest in the subject as a scientific case study, surprisingly little has been written on the science of snowflakes and their formation. For materials scientists, snowflakes constitute archetypal examples of crystal growth; for chemists, the site of complex molecular dynamics at the ice surface. Physicists can learn from snowflake symmetry and self-assembly; geologists study snow as mineral crystals; and biologists can even gain insight into the creation of shape and order in organisms. In the humble snowflake are condensed many of the processes-many of them still not fully understood-that govern the organization of classical systems at all levels of the natural world. This book by Kenneth Libbrecht-inarguably the world's foremost expert on the subject-will be the authoritative text on the science of snow crystals. It will cover all of the physical processes that govern the life of a snowflake, including how snowflakes grow and why they have the shapes they do. It will also outline techniques for creating and experimenting with snow crystals, both with computer models and in the lab. Featuring hundreds of color illustrations, the book will be comprehensive and is sure to become definitive resource for researchers for years, if not decades, to come"--

This gorgeous new calendar features super-detailed photographs of snowflakes, with captions describing the science behind their beauty, and literary quotesrelating to nature and snow.

Remarkable revelations of nature's diversity, revealed in hundreds of snowflake images taken by American photographer Bentley during a 50-year period. Over 850 illustrations of snow crystals, with no two designs exactly alike, will inspire artists, designers, and craftspeople in search of extraordinary patterns for textiles, wallpaper, and other creative projects.

An enlightening vision of how the laws of mathematics find organic expression in the beauty and patterns of nature, written by an acclaimed mathematician and science writer.

"A look at what snow crystals are, how they form, different types, their symmetry, and their facets and branches"--