The year of no summer

"On April 10th, 1815, Indonesia's Mount Tambora erupted. A build-up of ash in the stratosphere altered weather patterns and lead, in 1816, to a year without a summer. Instead, there were June snowstorms, food shortages, epidemics, inventions, and the proliferation of new cults and religious revivals. These linked lyrical essays chart the events and effects of the apocalyptic year following the eruption. Weaving history, fairytale, mythology, and memoir, Rachel Lebowitz ruminates on our interaction with weather and the natural world, motherhood, transformation, war, the human appetite for destruction, and our search for God and meaning in times of disaster."--