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3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Wave this one goodbye!, 17 May 2011
By W. Hall - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Wave Watcher's Companion: From Ocean Waves to Light Waves Via Shock Waves, Stadium Waves, and All the Rest of Life's Undulations (Hardcover)
The concept was good but the product is defective. After giving an explanation of what wave motion is that is consistent with the phenomenon as understood by scientists and mathematicians, the author proceeds to disown it. Some topics are effectively covered, such as how a wave's size determines its interaction with its environment. However the author ignores his own rule that things that look like waves aren't necessarily so. Water humping over an obstacle in its path is not a standing wave, a breaking ocean wave is not a shock wave. When the author tries to be a physics teacher and explain the blue coloring in the wings of the morpho butterfly he gets a D- at best. The book is written to entertain but more obviously to line the author's pocket. The dust jacket of the copy I wasted my money on refers to a website, [...]. This site does not exist but is good evidence that the author had hoped to start an industry with his wave book much as he has done with his book about clouds.
11 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Timely Pop Intellectualism, 7 Aug 2010
By S. Pactor "reader" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Wave Watcher's Companion: From Ocean Waves to Light Waves Via Shock Waves, Stadium Waves, and All the Rest of Life's Undulations (Hardcover)
This book is interesting not just because of the subject matter, but for the genre of popular nonfiction it exemplifies. Call it non-fiction's answer to the novel: It's antecedents are journalists like Tom Wolfe, and Hunter Thompson. It's a style that is best represented by William Vollmann's epic *Imperial* but you would also have to include novelist/writers like David Foster Wallace, McSweeney's titan Dave Eggers. It's also featured in the book length magazine articles of Malcolm Gladwell. None of the writers I am talking about are unknowns- in fact- they all seem to do pretty well.Other similar figures include Monocle magazine editor/Financial Times columnist Tyler Brule and the author of this book, Gavin Pretor-Pinney co-founder of The Idler magazine.
But I think if someone is sitting there thinking "what kind of book do i writer" you are better going with the creative non-fiction category then the novel. First of all, no one cares about good novels. Are you going to write a novel about a child wizard? A vampire? No? Then no one is going to care. On the other hand, a book like the Wave Watcher's Companion can generate a sensation using an easily recognizable format. Wave Watcher's Companion is a hit- the book itself its compact- fits in one hand, handsome cover, large text, footnotes in the back with a separate set of footnotes in the text. Photographs, illustrations, 19th century style section summaries placed onto the page. The over all impact of the book itself is one of distinct delight.
Pretor-Pinney has been down this road before, in addition to co-founding the Idler, an "alternative life style" magazine that has been hugely influential among the intellectual sets on both sides of the Atlantic since it started in the early 90s- he's also written "The Cloudspotter's Guide" which I have not read. The thing about Wave Watcher's Companion is that it is TIMELY. It is a Southern California zeitgeist atm and waves are very relevant.
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