I throughly enjoyed reading Matt's previous book Under the Stars: A Journey Into Light and was really excited for this. Hilariously I read this during the summer, warm weather and by the ocean, miles away from any snow, fog or rain. I really enjoyed being immersed in the weather and it really made me appreciate 'bad weather'.

Conceived during the terrible hot spell of summer 2022 (a time when only the windy place we hold the parkrun I co-event direct was remotely comfortable), when thinking about "bad" weather, Gaw also realises that so many of his childhood memories are linked to the wether, and he goes about considering these and tracking weather systems in the UK in order to go and experience fog, rain, ice, etc. in a series of long chapters filled with vignettes, often featuring his family and friends as well as himself. There are quotes from other writers but it's mainly personal wanderings and attempts to pin down the experiences in words, which I really enjoyed, and those words are nicely written and evocative. An epilogue returns us to the summer and some wild swimming that isn't freezing.

I would say that some of us already enjoy non-sunny weather: as someone with some outdoor hobbies (running and volunteering around parkrun) I quite enjoy a blustery and rainy day, though not hail. But it was interesting to have a book built just around these aspects.

Review to come on my blog in early July.

I loved this descriptive book. I love weather and can’t say I dislike any of it so this was a wonderful read for me. I will go back to this and re-read many times I think. Loved it!

In All Weathers is written as a scattering of scientific explanation combined with diary-like descriptions of weather-based memories, triggered by his decision to go out of his way to experience weather in all its extremes, to embrace the discomfort that sometimes brings. That quest sometimes involves travelling to remote places to guarantee the experience or find a more extreme version of it.

The author comments that since he started writing this book, “I’ve been surprised how weather frames my memories, how it is the lens through which I recall so many details of places and events.” Reading the book has done much the same for me, or rather, it’s brought into focus just how many of my vivid memories feature the weather. I dare say if I focussed on another attribute such as fear or pain or mountains or the sea, I could do much the same. Much as I can pick a word and find a song to match, but certain types of weather are particularly good at triggering memory, presumably because it engages a more basic part of our brains. It’s usually a physical memory, not just an event.

I’m finding it difficult to know what to say about In All Weathers. There are so many little facts incorporated into Matt Gaw’s musings about the weather. But it’s more like a meditation on weather than a factual account, and it’s certainly not a reference book. What it does do very successfully is produce all sorts of weather-related incidents in my own life. I don’t agree with his assertion that we have lost touch with the weather, particularly avoiding ‘bad’ weather, but that has more to do with me than with him because I spend a lot of time being affected by it; it is not a background issue to me as a walker, cyclist and gardener. In fact, the sheer torrent of memories released when I think about weather shows just how in touch with weather some of us are.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley for the free digital ARC. This is my true unbiased opinion after reading.

Oh I loved this!
I enjoyed getting to experience weather (and different hikes and walks) with the author, this book is really a perfect one to get through little bit by little bit every day with a good warm drink


Thank you NetGalley and Eliott & Thompson for the opportunity to read this ARC.

'Life needs to be grabbed with both hands. Because to experience weather, to see and feel hotly its patterns change, is to notice the rhythms of the planet, to see how the different facets of the word interconnect.'

Walking in a rainstorm may sound counterintuitive, but @mattgaw opens his beautiful new book by doing exactly that. It's not even that he's wrapping up in full waterproofs with wellies; Gaw is actually aiming to *feel* the weather, and to become part of it. This whole book feels very much like an exercise in embracing the weather and living in, rather than with it.

The book is laid out almost as a journal, beginning at the end of that endlessly oppresively hot summer in 2022. As the year progresses, the journal continues through rain of all sorts, fog, snow, ice, wind, whatever comes along, in fact. But Gaw is not just walking in the weather, he's also swimming and tree-climbing; there's skating and playing too. I absolutely loved the way that each new weather event provided another opportunity to feel, hear, see and smell everything in a new way.

As well as sharing all the incredible sensations that come from embracing the weather, there is plenty of detail about the environment and a good smattering of science. Interesting meteorological processes are also helpfully explained in a way that just helped me get a bit more out of the book.

It's hard to pick a favourite part in this book, as it's so very readable and the excitement is so apparent, but I really loved the encounter with the skaters and the trip to the moor in search of wuthering winds. I also loved that we were invited to share the experience of the author's family on several of his adventures. I love the broad-minded approach that children take to the weather, and I'm sure we could all benefit from finding the fun in strong winds and snow again!

Be warned that Matt Gaw's enthusiasm is infectious. He persuasively puts across that it's not as mad as it seems to head out in all weathers, and I'm prett much convinced that it's probably time to change my mindset and get out there, too!

Thanks to @elliottandthompson and @netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

"In All Weathers" is a quiet yet precise contemplates by Matt Gaw which focusses on different types of weather in different types of chapters using different hikes and places all over the UK. Having swum in the icy fairy pools myself more than a decade ago for the first time, the chapter on snow and ice was my favourite. I read this book when I couldn't sleep and it gave me a sense of calm: 4 stars

It’s a really good premise. The author sets out to intentionally experience what is often considered ’bad’ British weather - rain, fog, snow & ice and rain. Where this really worked was where he was meeting other people- the fenland skaters section was fantastic!

And it has made me want to consciously appreciate some of our more trying weather. But I wasn’t always keen on the more personal/descriptive passages (it’s not the first weather book I’ve had this issue with!), and I just wanted a little more, I guess.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for the chance to read and review this title. ‘In All Weathers’ will be published on 28th March 2024.