A bit dated, and in the audiobook edition a bit pompous too in its jokes rendition, but as a general public member I learned a lot about the way electromagnetic radiation changes and interacts in its voyage through the universe. ( )

(2007)Very good collection of essays by noted popular astronomer - very readable. From Publishers Weekly:What would it feel like if your spaceship were to venture too close to the black hole lurking at the center of the Milky Way? According to astrophysicist Tyson, director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium, size does matter when it comes to black holes, although the chances of your surviving the encounter aren't good in any case. Tyson takes readers on an exciting journey from Earth's hot springs, where extremophiles flourish in hellish conditions, to the frozen, desolate stretches of the Oort Cloud and the universe's farthest reaches, in both space and time. Tyson doesn't restrict his musings to astrophysics, but wanders into related fields like relativity and particle physics, which he explains just as clearly as he does Lagrangian points, where we someday may park interplanetary filling stations. He tackles popular myths (is the sun yellow?) and takes movie directors¥most notably James CameronÂ¥to task for spectacular goofs. In the last section the author gives his take on the hot subject of intelligent design. Readers of Natural History magazine will be familiar with many of the 42 essays collected here, while newcomers will profit from Tyson's witty and entertaining description of being pulled apart atom by atom into a black hole, and other, closer-to-earth, and cheerier, topics.

I so desperately wanted to like this book, but I just didn't. Whenever I find myself avoiding reading it means I'm not enjoying my current book, and it's time to accept that and move on.

I really only got halfway through...I love me some NGT, and I could tell he was trying to make astrophysics relatable, but much of it still went way over my head. I did appreciate his puns and quips. Maybe one day I'll return for another attempt. ( )

An excellent, easy to understand, humorous collection of essays on our universe. ( )