Hannah Holmes: The Secret Life of Dust

By MARGIE THOMSON

Mostly, we think of dust as a nuisance, a blight on our interiors, a catalyst for sneezes. Yet this ubiquitous substance begins among exploding stars, and the way Holmes tells it, it is a messenger with the air its medium.

Holmes' is a sparkling voice illuminating a potentially very dry subject. Dust is all around us, altering the behaviour of our atmosphere, changing the weather and even the climate, and bringing news broadcasts from far away and even long ago: a volcano has erupted; a nuclear disaster has occurred, someone is using pesticides, a factory is emitting poisonous smoke, someone has shaken out their bedding.

Holmes teaches us the facts of dust, its tonnage and ubiquity, but also its uses and its dangers, and she also introduces us to a surprisingly colourful cast of characters, those dust scientists who devote their professional lives to understanding this big-little fact of our physical world.

John Wiley and Sons $54.95