A provocative and expansive introduction to the exciting new field of exoplanet science.
An exploration of the feasibility and ethical implications of establishing human life beyond Earth.
In his latest, Impey, an acclaimed astronomy professor and author of Einstein’s Monsters, Dreams of Other Worlds, and many other books about the cosmos, blends a history of astronomy with a tour of the latest technologies and leading pioneers in space exploration. To date, scientists have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, which are planets that orbit around stars other than our sun. This number is expected to rapidly increase as technology makes it easier to recognize and image exoplanets and to identify those in the so-called “habitable zone.” In turn, this means that the possibility of discovering extraterrestrial life is increasingly within reach. “It is astonishingly likely that we are not the only time and place that an advanced civilization has evolved,” writes Impey. Meanwhile, the habitability of Earth is diminishing, with little progress toward a solution to the current “sustainability crisis.” The author surveys the many planets that may harbor life, the current technologies and scientists that enable these profound discoveries, and the possible future technologies that may bring us there and allow for long-term settlement. Throughout these complex yet fluid discussions, Impey emphasizes the need for careful introspection about the ethics of expanding our footprint in space and whether we should instead focus our resources on overcoming climate challenges on Earth. “Populating space is an activity that pushes us outward while inducing introspection and motivating us to grow as a species,” he writes. In the coming decades, a slew of endeavors to image, traverse, and explore the far reaches of our solar system and beyond will bring these issues to the forefront of decisions for long-term survival. “We are curious,” he writes, “whether the experiment that began on Earth soon after its formation has been replicated anywhere else.”
A provocative and expansive introduction to the exciting new field of exoplanet science.Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9780262047661
Page Count: 376
Publisher: MIT Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.
Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.
McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”
A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781668098998
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
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