space

I know from personal experience how hard it is for a scientist to forget everything we’ve learned about technical science writing in order to write for a more general audience. Dr. Katie Mack has managed this spectacularly, with grace and humor.

I imagine Dr. Mack and her editor constantly fighting about the tone of the book during its writing. There is a perfect balance of handling the seriousness of the subject with a lightheartedness that makes it all okay. Dr. Mack keeps it together (mostly) in the text, but the footnotes do not hold back, and I am here for them.
Most people probably imagine cosmologists as super smart, boring, and stuffy. Smart: yes. Boring and stuffy: no way. Dr. Mack is relatable: excitable, funny, and still impressed by the discoveries happening in her field. She doesn’t shy from blowing her own mind, and does a good job of communicating the strangeness to her reader, sprinkling some pop sci fi culture references along the way.