There is something very charmingly British about this book. The country that gave us the lackadaisical pursuit of trainspotting has now produced the even more wistful cloud-collecting — surely not a coincidental pastime, given the British climate. In his "The Cloud Collector's Handbook" — first published in the U.S. earlier this year by Chronicle Books — Gavin Pretor-Pinney describes all the major categories and sub-varieties of clouds, with photographs that he's crowd-sourced (or should it be cloud-sourced?) from the far-flung members of his Cloud Appreciation Society. Avid sky-gazers can note down in the book where they spotted clouds, both rare and common, and keep track of point values the author has assigned them.

Pretor-Pinney is aware of how quixotic this undertaking may appear, writing in his preface that clouds are "like expressions on the face of the sky, and certainly not candidates for a display case. Given all the possible things you might consider collecting," he argues, "clouds would seem to be a completely silly option." Yet, he concludes, "you don't have to own something to collect it. You don't even have to hold it. You just have to notice and record it." I don't find the point system particularly inspiring, but I love this book for its combination of gorgeous photos, scientific information, and lessons of environmental appreciation.

View Slideshow: Look Up!: Appreciating the Art in the Atmosphere With "The Cloud Collector's Handbook"

In the fifth grade, my class studied clouds and I got really into it, so this book was a wonderful refresher on the joys of trotting out Latin compound words such as cumulonimbus and cirrostratus. I discovered lots of cloud features of which I was unaware in my novice days, such as "cap and banner" formations, which occur at mountaintops: banners are wispy trails that stream out from the peak, and caps look like hats on the mountain's head, ranging from "a humble skullcap" to "a full mother-in-law at a wedding extravaganza." (Pretor-Pinney's wit is on display in many of the book's descriptions.) I really want to see the fleeting horseshoe vortex, a rare cloud that looks just like its name, and will try to remember that "anyone lucky enough to spot one must take a photo if they want to be believed by their cloud-collecting friends."

The book's photos are spectacular, with no Photoshopping necessary. They show phenomena like iridescence, which looks like trippy rainbow streaks in the sky, and crepuscular rays, sunbeams that stream through clouds like heavenly light. Another way-out phenomenon is the "sun pillar," red vertical streaks of light caused by the sun shining through ice-crystal clouds. Kelvin-Helmholtz wave clouds (which boast the highest point-value in the book) look exactly like clouds arranged into a wave pattern. They're actually caused by wind shear, but knowing that doesn't detract from the beauty of seeing clouds masquerading as a downy row of waves.

The press release for "The Cloud Collector's Handbook" promises the ability to "amaze your friends by predicting weather patterns by identifying cloud formations." I'm not at entirely convinced that I have that one down, but I think I've become a cloud connoisseur nonetheless, and I tip my hat to the Cloud Appreciation Society for their fight against "blue-sky thinking."