I am a great fan of Carl Sagan and it is with some sadness that I can recommend this, his last book, only partially. It is a collection of nineteen essays, organized into three mostly unrelated parts. Some items are well worth reading—particularly the last—but some not at all.Part 1, "The Power and Beauty of Quantification," is merely a simple echo of his famous book Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1980). The first chapter on large numbers, from which the "Billions and Billions" of this book's title

First it was Ann Druyan’s bittersweet epilogue, and then the very next page Carl’s unfinished acknowledgements began with his words to Annie: “I want to be like you when I grow up.” Every copy of this book, not just mine, must have those pages wrinkled up with water.The rest: everything you would expect from Carl Sagan. Fabulous, even when what should be badly dated by now still sadly applies.Highly recommended to any and all.

Series of articles by the brilliant Carl Sagan in his last book on topics such as humanity, the universe, religion, love and deathi rate this book 3 stars, and a fourth star is just for Carl Sagan as a human who i look up to as the best cosmic citizen ever lived. every sentence i read i imagined from his "cosmos" voice and smile. who else could touch on all topics of science, math, religion, love and emotions in one discussion and reach all levels of people?last chapter "In the valley of the sha...

What a great book. It was well written and really touched on a variety of different topics. Though it is dated now, I still feel that I gained a lot by reading it. And the last two chapters where he talked about his disease and views on death really struck deep with me.

I will never tire of reading Carl Sagan's thoughts on anything and everything.We’ve been here for only about a million years, we, the first species that has devised means for its self-destruction. We are rare and precious because we are alive, because we can think as well as we can. We are privileged to influence and perhaps control our future. I believe we have an obligation to fight for life on Earth—not just for ourselves, but for all those, humans and others, who came before us, and to whom

Sagan is eloquent as always. It helps even more to read it out loud to yourself, (muttering lest someone observe) and make up a Sagan accent as you go. He takes a gentle hand, which I think bespeaks desperation in his last years, his last chance to nudge the ball forward amidst tangible fear that forceful will be deemed strident, erudite will sound preachy, and warning the bitter rantings of an old Cassandra. Carl knows he's on the losing team, he loves humanity, and deeply fears our suicide by

I first became enthralled by Sagan at age fourteen when I discovered my dad's copy of Cosmos. Eighteen years later, I finally decided to read this one. I can't remember the last time, if ever, I've teared up at the end of a non-fiction book. The more I read of Sagan and his work, the more I'm humbled and impressed by not only his scope of technical knowledge of the Universe (I appreciate his use of capitalization) but his complete reverence for it. In this book, this reverence flows down to the

This book was a real let down. It starts off with with pleasant rambling; like hanging out with stoned Sagan at a party. Then it devolves into a sob story about climate change and war.When discussing climate change, Sagan takes an irrationally anti-nuclear stance. He proposes we just plant trees to take up CO2, which isn't a solution. He also suggests covering the US with wind farms, but this isn't a solution, either.Then there's the chapter about that cozies up to religion as though to win it o...

The core premise of Sagan's final book is, to paraphrase an old Native American saying, "We have not inherited the Earth from our ancestors, but have borrowed it from our children." So stop the F screwing it up.Presented as 3 parts of 19 essays in total, some of the essays, especially in the first part, are similar to the material he covered in Cosmos: cosmology and the vastness of space, our history as a species, general physics, life outside Earth. Some of the other essays are about then emerg...

Six times now have I looked Death in the face. And six times Death has averted his gaze and let me pass. Eventually, of course, Death will claim me - as he does each of us. It's only a question of when. And how.I've learned much from our confrontations - especially about the beauty and sweet poignancy of life, about the preciousness of friends and family, and about the transforming power of love. In fact, almost dying is such a positive, character-building experience that I'd recommend it to eve...

This is I think Carl Sagan's last published book, published in 1996. His chapter/essay, entitled "The Twentieth Century," is one of the most insightful summaries of what the universe is that I ever read. Well, maybe not the most insightful, but surely in the top three:"Perhaps the most wrenching by-product of the scientific revolution has been to render untenable many of our most cherished and most comforting beliefs. The tidy anthropocentric proscenium of our ancestors has been replaced by a co...

Billions and Billions by Carl SaganHere are some notes I took while reading this book which was published posthumously in 1997. It was the last book that Sagan wrote before his death in 1996. The content admittedly covers a very wide range of science conundrums facing humanity. Archimedes is said to have come up with scientific notation in the 3rd century B.C.Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard in came up with the concept of a nuclear chain reaction in 1933. He quickly calculated that a few pounds o...

Written at the end of his life and published with an post script illuminating his unsuccessful battle with myelodysplasia, as well as a touching epilogue by his widow Ann Druyan. The book starts out with a kind of fleshing-out of humanity by its numbers, things like human population and resource usage and the age of the species are all implicitly synthesized into a description of people by very large numbers. It then touches on social and environmental issues, how people react to them, and what

Popular science that reads like poetry.

Carl Sagan writes about many topics in this book, but manages to make them all readable and understandable. My favorites are his essays on exponential growth and decay, the universe, and abortion. He really clearly lays out his thoughts and makes hard to understand concepts reachable in science and mathematics. He makes what is probably the most logical argument I have ever read in the abortion debates about our need to decide what makes us human and determine at what point that happens. His sho...

This falls into the Books I Should Have Read Already category, although it could also be in the Small Stacks of Found Books one because I did find it at a used bookstore while looking for something else. Sagan covered a lot, in his very accessible way, and a reader might get an impression that he ran out of time, which of course, he did. I’ll not summarize here but I will share a few notes I made and observations I flagged... I do want to point out that even good thinkers like Sagan make mistake...

Wow. That was nothing short of beautiful. Sagan begins with a little introduction about the long misinterpreted understanding of who really said “Billions and Billions” and now he chooses what was a misconception or humorous parody of him to be the title of his last book. This is a way of him ending his legacy on a note of “thank you for remembering me”. Sagan then talks numbers for a little while to really show how small the big things are or how easily and quickly we can reach them. Once we ar...

As I always think when I finish one of his books; few who have ever put pen to paper have ever been more wise or knowledgeable than Carl Sagan

Sagan can be a little repetitive but that doesn't mean his words carry no less value. The chapter on abortion is worth your time if you've ever been even mildly divided on the issue, which you should be. Also, I teared up on the bus reading In The Valley of the Shadow, which documents Sagan's fatal battle with myelodysplastic syndrome.

Powerful book. Carl Sagan shows deep understanding and humility of and for the human race. He speaks of philosophy, the climate change, abortion, life, death, nuclear war, and the as always the universe. Sagan was concerned for the human race and the ideas he presents are relevant today. I am sad that he did not live to see the success of the human race but simultaneously glad he did not see our failures. We should have headed his warnings. The one thing Carl Sagan did not see coming was the pow...