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."

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