I discovered this book while reading the author's blog, and promptly borrowed a copy from the library. I have now finally gotten around to writing about it. Without further ado, I present the first review of a nonfiction book on the Homeschool Review… [according to my spellchecker, ‘homeschool’ is not a word, but ‘homeschooler’ and ‘homeschooled’ are. What gives? (More spellchecker gripes below.)]
Background Info:
Death From the Skies! was written by Dr. Philip Plait, aka the Bad Astronomer, and published in fall of 2008.
Subject Matter:
The book deals with the ever-cheery subject of the destruction of the world due to cosmic events. Asteroids, Gamma-Ray Bursts, Supernovae, and other such fun items. All presented with a somewhat jovial air, in an easily accessible style. (Jovial might not be the right word, as Jupiter doesn’t figure much. :) Each chapter begins with a little fictional piece that shows what happens in the event that is being dealt with.
My Notes:
I just love end-of-the-world scenarios. They’re very interesting to contemplate, and make for some interesting novels. (I like me my post-apocalyptic science fiction — there isn’t much in the way of post-apocalyptic nonfiction stories to be had, thankfully.) I enjoyed this book immensely. I will probably get it out of the library again some time soon, assuming you lot don’t beat me to it.
Some of you are thinking, “That is a science book! It will be full of sciencey [sp? my spellchecker doesn’t like it and doesn’t have any helpful suggestions] stuff which I don’t understand! I’m not reading it.” Fear not! For Dr. Plait is not just good at science — he is also good at writing. Unless you make a conscious effort to not understand, any homeschool student of the age most of my readers are should be able to understand quite well. And you can always use a good reliable encyclopedia to fill in any gaps. ;)
I Didn’t Like: (This goes for Dr. Plait’s excellent blog also)
Dr. Plait is an evolutionist. I am fine with the evolutionist part – I just take everything with a pinch of salt. Certain people may have a few issues with the science in here, because he uses Hubble time as the age of the universe, like the majority of astrophysics. I agree with that, and I am not going to discuss it here. This is a review. I just want you to know that what I am fine with science-wise may not sit well with you and this should be taken into account. This goes double for his blog, which I read and enjoy. (And often disagree with.)
Conclusion:
It’s a good book, I enjoyed it immensely. Some people may take issue with some of the science; the majority I found to be sound. Enjoy.
If you have already read this book, make sure to say what you thought of it in the comments below. If you read the book, feel free to come back and add your tuppence worth. [There we go again! That spellchecker doesn’t think ‘tuppence’ is a word.]
PS- I have tagged this as "Death From the Skies", without a '!'. This is because this particular piece of punctuation is forbidden in tags, which I discovered after 5 minutes of wondering why Windows Live Writer refused to upload this post. I hope this piece of useful information saves someone 5 minutes in some way or another.
3 comments:
Spell check is extremely overrated. I wouldn't bother with it except if you can't remember how to spell a word that you already know is a real word. :)
It sounds interesting, but I have found that reading end-of-the-world nonfiction only seems to scare me out of enjoying my life right now. This may not be the case of this book, but considering it is written by an evolutionist, I doubt he touches on the hope found in Christ's return, which is what I would most desperately be needing during the time of reading about the end of the world. Does that make any sense?
I have two purposes for spellcheckers: making sure that I don't mix American and English spellings (I prefer English for personal writing, American for everything else), and catching typos. But those little red lines... (I am an even worse case than Lizzie- I insist on using XHTML, and validating it too!)
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Makes perfect sense. The next book I review will be less depressing, I promise.
Hmm, I might have posted that a little too late in the evening. On reflection, the second sentence should read: "But those little red lines are so very OCDishness-inducing..."
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