Cosmos - Carl Sagan

I'll be very quick ...

... as there is nothing else to add except that this book is THE BEST book I've ever read in my entire life. Carl Sagan is a GENIUS. His memory will live on forever through his books. He made me love astronomy so much I bought a telescope! :o)

Masterpiece

Carl Sagan's COSMOS is simply one of the best popular science books ever written. What sets this book apart from others on the subject is Sagan's poetic style and enthusiasm for the topic. By the way, the pictures in the hard-cover version are beautiful.

read what you can of it, but READ it!

This is an incredible book, even if it is dated. I am a words person, not numbers, so when Sagan got into a lot of equations and chemistry, I had to kind of skim over those parts. I never could have understood them, and if I'd tried to force myself to, I probably would have gotten frustrated and gave up on the book. So I stuck with the parts (happily, that was most of it) I could absorb and easily understand. There were so many fascinating aspects to it that I would have missed had I given up over the math. This book is capable of starting you on a journey. It has made me find a book on Alexandria, which I am just starting. There is a fascinating history there, and I will continue on with books on da Vinci and Einstein. They are men I've heard about, of course, but never has my curiosity about them been so piqued. Being a book lover, the Library of Alexandria is something I want to learn more about. This book will make you want to learn more about a lot of things.

Fantastic

This is undoubtedly the most beautiful work of science ever written for the general public. It spans across multiple disciplines, from evolution, to genetics, to chemistry, to physics, to astronomy, and astrophysics. Whether you're a scientist or just a child interesting in the world around us, Dr. Sagan does not disappoint and conveys science with nothing less than elegance.

Awe-all, not just some

I have to laugh that one of the tags for this book is atheist. Was he an atheist? I don't know. But I truly enjoyed this book, and it was a further shovel of dirt on religion in the ground for me. A number of things had led me to that point (taking a philosophy course way back when I was in college), but this book really gave religion in a frank light: nothing more than an explanation of the unknown for societies. The ones that took hold and didn't go away when science explained away are what we have today. But seriously, lets only go as far as agnostic, please.

Religion aside, this is truly a magnificent travel through space. I read it whilst camping that really assisted in its fine journey. A little outdated, but highly recommended nonetheless.