A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.
Have we been visited by aliens?
Harvard astronomer Loeb believes we have, basing his assertion on “evidence…collected over eleven days, starting on October 19, 2017,” at a Hawaiian observatory. That’s when the author, the director of the Black Hole Initiative and the Institute for Theory and Computation, and his fellow scientists unexpectedly observed the “first known interstellar visitor.” It was a small object: “highly luminous, oddly tumbling, with a 91 percent probability of being disk-shaped.” Moving roughly 58,900 miles per second, it “passed through our solar system and, without visible outgassing, smoothly accelerated from a path that deviated from the force of the sun’s gravity alone.” Loeb and his colleagues named it “Oumuamua,” a Hawaiian word that roughly translates to scout. Though the scientific debate continues, writes the author, “the likelihood of scientists ever observing demonstrable proof is very remote.” Loeb meticulously analyzes the evidence they have so far: No “confirmed interstellar object had ever been observed in our solar system,” and it wasn’t a comet or asteroid. Further research revealed that it rotated every eight hours and was approximately 100 yards long and less than 10 yards wide. Its unique, “smooth and steady” acceleration and deviation from the sun led the author to a hypothesis that charmed the media but generated “intense controversy and pushback” from other scientists. Loeb also delves into the object’s spin rate, unchanging rotation, and the possibility that it might be another civilization’s space hardware. After all, we’ve been “junking-up” space for years. Loeb issues a clarion call for a team of astro-archaeologists to increase research into possible alien life; unfortunately, the “conservative scientific community” has always fought against such research. It’s hard to argue with the author’s claim that it’s the “height of arrogance to contend that we are unique,” and he even speculates that life on Earth may be of Martian or interstellar origin.
A tantalizing, probing inquiry into the possibilities of alien life.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-358-27814-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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