The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life

From the first page to the end, my curiosity has been satisfied.

This is the book “Alien Earths,” should’ve been. A respected scholar in the field generates a very well written book on the most important scientific question of our age. Insightful and lucid, without dumbing down the science. All science writing should be this good. A complex topic made accessible to the thoughtful reader.There was some disappointment only in the very last chapter. As always, scientists cannot help themselves as they comment on the human species, as if the lab rats are simply are not behaving rationally. You can bet she wasn’t worried about the carbon emissions it took to print and sell her book, though. The last chapter is the obligatory critique of humanity and and how foolish we all are (the author, naturally, excluded) since, of course pesky humans are off doing whatever they want in uncontrolled fashion. Her view point on politics (yes, at the end she can’t resist getting into politics, for no useful reason in a science book on extraterrestrial life) is achingly, grindingly predictable, and meant to strengthen her bona fides at the next cocktail party… It’s hard to believe it’s meant for the reader! Like many scientists, the author believes that if only the knowing, enlightened elite could force enough people to do enough things, earth would be such a utopia. We saw this during Covid with school closings (which now even Dr. Fauci admits was a huge mistake) and gain of function research at a Chinese lab, which the FBI now rates as the “likely,” cause of the pandemic, demonstrating absurd judgment on behalf of our best scientists. Nevertheless, even though she should have skipped the eyeball rolling last chapter, this book is a pearl.

This book is a challenging read. Much of it is over my head. However I have learned a lot and am glad I bought it.

I bought this for my son who is interested in the origins of the cosmos and, thus, everything else. The chapter headings alone indicated that anyone curious about how the universe came to be and of what it is composed should find this book fascinating.

For the material, that could have been very technical, this book is written in common English and easy to understand. Really lays out concepts of how life evolved, and may still be evolving, here on Earth, as well as extra-terrestrial origins of potential life both in our solar system and other solar systems that we've encountered.