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A review by argent_
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan
5.0
The last chapter (and the Epilogue) alone warrants a 5-star review - I teared up twice there, and I don't tear up, period. You can buy this book, skip the first 18 chapters, read the last 20 pages or so, and still be happy you spent the money on it.
But that aside, the rest of the book has its ups and downs. While the writing is beautiful, simple, and comprehensible in every chapter, there are some things to keep in mind. I, perhaps wrongly, expected more science - there is very little "hard" science in this book. In fact, the first few chapters mostly cover basic ideas, such what mathematical exponents are, or what a chemical molecule is. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was all mostly a build-up towards the issues of global warming, ozone layer depletion, and (global) wars. For a while it felt that it was those issues the book was all about - but the concluding few chapters tied things up and discussed what I had been waiting for since I started reading: thoughts on life and death.
But that aside, the rest of the book has its ups and downs. While the writing is beautiful, simple, and comprehensible in every chapter, there are some things to keep in mind. I, perhaps wrongly, expected more science - there is very little "hard" science in this book. In fact, the first few chapters mostly cover basic ideas, such what mathematical exponents are, or what a chemical molecule is. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was all mostly a build-up towards the issues of global warming, ozone layer depletion, and (global) wars. For a while it felt that it was those issues the book was all about - but the concluding few chapters tied things up and discussed what I had been waiting for since I started reading: thoughts on life and death.