Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Throughout her powerful essay collection, Transient and Strange, science reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce uses her knowledge of and interest in science to reflect on her own life. These reflections skillfully combine topics that at first might seem incongruent. In one essay, she juxtaposes the discovery of black holes with her difficult first sexual experiences, and her uncertainty about her memories of those events. In another, the merging of her fascination with meteorites and the pain of seeing her parents' health decline becomes a moving contemplation of the impermanence of life and the search for meaning within it:
"Maybe I'll find a meteorite, and maybe I won't. Maybe all I'll ever do is quietly sift through a bunch of ordinary, sometimes beautiful stuff, searching for something ethereal that I'm not equipped to recognize and probably won't ever truly understand."
Other ...
BookBrowse's reviews and "beyond the book" articles are part of the many benefits of membership and, thus, are generally only available to subscribers, including individual members and patrons of libraries that subscribe.
Join TodayIf you liked Transient and Strange, try these:
A book to sweep you away from the shore, into a wild world of water, whale, storm, and starlight— to experience what it's like to sail for weeks at a time with life set to a new rhythm.
In this luminous memoir, an MIT astrophysicist must reinvent herself in the wake of tragedy and discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth.
A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for the birth of ideas--a place ...
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.