Well, you blew it.

You’d spent all that time making sure your ‘do was perfect, not a hair out of place — and then you went outside. The wind took care of your work, making your head look like you’d coiffed it with an eggbeater. It billowed around your body, it stung your face, and in “The Breath of the Gods” by Simon Winchester, you need that to happen again.

Imagine trying to describe wind to a Neanderthal.

It can’t be seen, but it’s there. It can be heard, but sometimes it can’t. You can feel it, but you can’t touch it. On many days, you don’t notice it, and sometimes you can’t miss it, like when it’s ferocious enough to destroy forests, stir water, and kill. There are places on Earth where it’s windy all the time and places where it’s hardly ever windy, which is “unsettling.”

It’s believed that early humans who lived in areas of high, constant wind “tended to flourish,” while those who lived in calmer places were worse off, overall. Ancient scientists in larger societies tried to understand wind and could even measure it; the Sumerians named different kinds of it as did the Chinese. Other cultures had their own names for the winds they felt, and those words entered lexicons and literature.

Still, Winchester says, “only wind’s consequences are visible, not the wind itself.”

Wind can carry smoke from hundreds of miles away, and it can carry deadly radiation over continents. It’s the only way some plants can spread seeds. Wind can destroy, it can be put to work, and it needs constant watching because it changes. It can ruin broadcasts, make music both naturally and through instruments, assist flight, heat and cool, move a ship (or help sink it), and change the outcome of a war.

And, says Winchester, on at least one occasion, wind moved tons of land from middle America to the east coast, changing the country forever…

Outside, trees sway, snowflakes look like ants scurrying through the air, and the reason for it often goes unheeded. Chances are, in fact, that you don’t much think about wind unless it’s biting, strong, or remarkable, like a tornado, hurricane, or windchill. But now’s the time to read “The Breath of the Gods,” and you’ll never go outside again without noticing that thing you cannot see.

Just beware though — the book’s first few pages are rough going, they set the tone for a promise. Author Simon Winchester takes readers on a breezy journey from ancient caves to modern meteorological laboratories, in equal parts history and science, with an easy-to-grasp narrative. Promise: you won’t be overwhelmed. Instead, you’ll find tales that will make you informed, things that could terrify you, and facts that might make your life a little easier.

Armchair meteorologists and weather-watchers will need this book in their laps this week. So will history lovers and readers of offbeat subjects, and if you’re concerned about climate change, grab “The Breath of the Gods.”

It’s a fascinating way to blow some time.

“The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind” by Simon Winchester
c.2025, Harper $35.00 389 pages