The answer is ``yes,'' says Drake (Astronomy/UC at Santa Cruz), founder of the modern search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), in this likable autobiography told with the assistance of Sobel, former science editor for The New York Times. Drake, who was born in 1930, describes how adolescent rebellion against religion drove him to science, where he developed an early fascination with life in outer space. At Harvard, he became a radio astronomer, and realized that this fledgling science would allow him to scan the heavens for extraterrestrials. At 26, he thought he heard their signals: ``I could barely breathe from excitement, and soon after my hair started to turn white.'' Despite this false alarm, in 1960 he started Project Ozma, the first serious SETI endeavor, and soon after joined forces with young Carl Sagan, dolphin expert John Lilly, and others in a professional SETI study group known as ``The Order of the Dolphin.'' Drake became director of the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, where he encountered terrorists and vampire bats; coined the term ``pulsars''; and, with Sagan, visited an incarcerated Timothy Leary, who requested help in designing spacecraft. In time, bigger and better SETIs ensued, including the infamous plaque of a nude man and woman aboard Pioneer 10, for which Drake incurred the wrath of American prudes and the British Astronomer Royal, who feared that our location had been divulged to bloodthirsty aliens. In Drake's view, the culmination of SETI is the upcoming NASA project to eavesdrop on 28 million radio channels simultaneously. His enthusiasm is infectious as he predicts the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence by the year 2000, which ``will profoundly change the world.'' Since SETI has shown only negative results after 30 years, this serves as testimony to both scientific pluck and eternal optimism. A fascinating life, rich with odd opinions (``I suspect that immortality may be quite common among extraterrestrials'') and a sense of cosmic awe. (Line art and photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 2, 1992
ISBN: 0-385-30532-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1992
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
