The Nature of Things

I had been looking forward to the publication of this book since I first read about it a few weeks ago. I had preordered it on my Kindle. When it was delivered this week, as luck would have it, I had just finished reading another book and so I pounced on it. I read Weather essentially in one sitting, something I almost never do. True, it is a short book, just over 200 pages and it was raining outside that day and so my other preferred activities were limited. But the main reason for the quick read is that the writing is propulsive. Each paragraph or section leads one inexorably to the next.  The format of the narrative is somewhat like a diary. Each entry could almost be seen as discrete, standing on its own, and yet each entry also encourages the reader to read on, to see what is coming next. The narrator of the novel is Lizzie Benson, who abandoned her graduate studies to take care of her drug-addicted and depressed brother. She never returned to those studies, but with the inte...