This Weather Blows

IF YOU HAVE ever sat at dinner listening to a raconteur who has an anecdote for everything and moves with amazing fluidity from one subject to the next while enjoying his own voice rolling along musically and entertainingly and with relentless authority, then you will have an idea of what it is like to be on the receiving end of Simon Winchester in "The Breath of the Gods," a discursive nonfiction look at "the history and future of the wind.

- By Simon Winchester

Wind, the British-born author notes, "finds its way into just about every activity and inactivity of man, beast, plant and thing that exists in the world." Wind takes many forms and serves many functions. You cannot see it, but you can see what it