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Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers, the people willing to adventure across high mountaintops and to some of the most remote corners of the planet, all in the name of science. From the lonely quiet of midnight stargazing to tall tales of wild bears loose in the observatory, The Last Stargazers is a love letter to astronomy and an affirmation of the crucial role that humans can and must play in the future of scientific discovery.
August! We’re gonna add some backlist bumps here of books that came out near the beginning of 2020. Remember the beginning of 2020? I had an AMC A-List membership. I saw movies in theaters. What an unthinkable thing now. Anyway! Here’s some new books to get into your brain:
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack. Don’t you love to put things in perspective? Well, astronomer Katie Mack does. She’s a theoretical astrophysicist who in this book lays out five possible ways the universe could end. Fun! But for reals, this is not going to happen anytime soon and we’ve only had recorded history for like 10,000 years and the universe is like 13.8 billion years old, so…there’s some math for you. Mack walks you through “the Big Crunch; the Heat Death; Vacuum Decay; the Big Rip; and the Bounce.” If you like Space and Staring into the Void, here y’go.
A Furious Sky: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America’s Hurricanes by Eric Jay Dolin. I know, these new releases are a series of sunny looks into the future. Or a look at our stormy past! (get it?) Dolin has also written about pirates and whaling, so things on the open sea are his “thing.” This is a history of hurricanes in America going back to the late 1400s, “showing how these tempests frequently helped determine the nation’s course.” I know you weather fans are gonna be real into this.
Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America’s Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer by Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz. Do you know about Eliot Ness’s life after The Untouchables? Ohio brought him in to find a serial killer! He did some really bad things while trying to accomplish this goal! The killer was “the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run,” who also had a grosser name that you can google if you want. Anyway, if you like history and true crime and want to find out what Eliot Ness’s follow-up to catching Capone was, here it is.
Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins. Get! This! Book! In what’s kind of a sociology/memoir hybrid, Jerkins “recreates her ancestors’ journeys across America, following the migratory routes they took from Georgia and South Carolina to Louisiana, Oklahoma, and California.” It’s SO good and you should add it to your fall reading list. It’s also got that extra satisfaction of being a travel narrative in a time when traveling has become perilous, so you get to take a vicarious journey with her as she meets people and learns about her past and the lives of those who were part of the Great Migration.
BACKLIST BUMPS
The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir by E.J. Koh. It’s a mother/daughter book! When Koh was fifteen, her parents returned to South Korea and left her and her brother (who had lived in America for the last ten years) in California. Her mother writes her letters in Korean, which Koh reads as an adult years later. This book deals with “forgiveness, reconciliation, legacy, and intergenerational trauma.” Koh is a poet and Kim and I stan a poet writing nonfiction.
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall. I can’t believe this only came out this year. It feels like it’s already almost a standard read. I’m just gonna quote the copy, because it states it awesomely: “Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues.” Read this!
As always, you can find me on social media @itsalicetime and co-hosting the nonfiction For Real podcast with Kim here at Book Riot. Until next time, enjoy those facts, fellow nerds.