Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment [Paperback]

The nature of my work is such that I work in as many as 70 countries every year. I'm always interested in new places, but more than that I'm interested in the questions that new places cause me to ask that I have never asked before. Unfamiliar places cause curiosity, which far more fun than reaching answers. Tim Brookes' "Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment" is a voyage that caused me to ask the same kinds of intriguing questions as I was reading it that I normally ask when I'm on the road in an unfamiliar place. He approaches the seemingly mundane (weather, for example)from oblique perspectives that reveal sides of the ordinary that are nothing short of extraordinary.You will enjoy this book - I highly recommend it to anyone with even the mildest sense of curiosity about the world around us.

It could just as easily have been called Chasing the Monsoon- but that would convey less of the sense that the journey is what matters here.

This is another great travel story: anyone familiar with Brookes' excellent 'A Hell of a Place to Lose a Cow' will be rewarded with his trademark wit, pithy observations, and a style of writing about the less-familiar that is curious, humorous, reflective and yet gently respectful as well.

The location is India, setting of many a great yarn. This one, however, takes place in southern parts less explored by Western writers, and for that alone the book is worth the price of admission. Populated by colorful characters which Brookes never reduces to caricature (as some travel writers are apt to do), he engages with his new travel companions and the ever-changing geography. Along the way we are treated to wry observations on just about everything he comes across.

Ostensibly, the book is about the miracle that is weather forecasting, especially where it matters the most: predicting the monsoon, which is perhaps the most important meterological event in the Indian subcontinent. Does Tim get to figure out how it's done? Does he watch the monsoon come ashore in all its glory? It's not giving it away to say that none of this will matter very much in the book. The reader is so absorbed in the descriptions and the drama, the prose and the process, that getting there isn't half the story- it's most of it. And you'll like being along for the ride.

I just finished reading, "Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment" and I must tell you I felt I was beside Tim Brookes during the entire journey. It was a delightful read and a good sensory experience as well. Thanks to author Brookes for the journey.

Through work I have became friends with people born/raised in India who later moved to the US and I have worked with people in India via telephone and email. These relationships gave me some small understanding of the remarkably complex natural and phenomenal environment in which the book is set. Starting with this experience base I was able to see, hear and at times even feel the environments Brookes describes as he wends his way though an attempt to research and write about the Monsoon Season in South Asia. I am not an easy traveler at times so starting right off with his travel preparations and flights I felt as if I were right beside him anxiously trying to get where I needed to go without major calamity.

A question arises in our minds as he begins his journey in India, if you have never been to a place how do you avoid planning to be purposeful in your travel and work - in an incorrect way? Tim Brookes shows us how he learns to allow the places he traveled through educate him about what he needed to know, rather than extracting from the places what he came specifically to research. Sometimes what he learned about aligned with his original intent - sometimes not.

In the heart of the book I think Brookes shows us how he came to take a healthy route once it became clear his expectation for, *how things worked* when one researched a scientific topic (from a Western science based perspective), failed to manifest itself. He is not an unseasoned traveler and researcher but in this case he was sent to research a topic which is studied and thought about in very different ways in the US than in India and perhaps other parts of South Asia. Couple that with some geo-political problems of the time and he ends up working with a story and place which at times is not wishing to be researched.

The descriptions of the environments through which he traveled are appropriately detailed such that I could feel I was there. His related conversations help you better understand the sometimes mis-alignment of his goal of the moment and the lesson of the place. I don't mean to imply some supernatural power here I just mean places have history and meaning and ways of being which are like currents which are best to follow or use rather than fight.

In reading what I have written above I have rambled on a bit. Sorry. What I want to say is this is a very good read, a transporting read and an educational read all in one. I know I learned quite a bit about an important part of the world, an important weather topic and how to be a more enlightened traveler.

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