My Meteorite

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2020 An expansive, radiant, and genre-defying investigation into bonding—and how we are shaped by forces we cannot fully know Is love a force akin to gravity? A kind of invisible fabric which enables communications through space and time? Artist Harry Dodge finds himself contemplating such questions as his father declines from dementia and he rekindles a bewildering but powerful relationship with his birth mother. A meteorite Dodge orders on eBay becomes a mysterious catalyst for a reckoning with the vital forces of matter, the nature of consciousness, and the bafflements of belonging. Structured around a series of formative, formidable coincidences in Dodge’s life, My Meteorite journeys with stylistic bravura from Barthes to Blade Runner, from punk to Pale Fire. It is a wild, incandescent book that creates a literary universe of its own. Blending the personal and the philosophical, the raw and the surreal, the transgressive and the heartbreaking, Harry Dodge revitalizes our world, illuminating the magic just under the surface of daily life.

In Search of Stardust is the first comprehensive popular science book about micrometeorites. It's illustrated with 1,500 previously unpublished images from high-resolution color microscopes and scanning electron microscopes.

My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites is the result of a daily investigative writing practice, in which I was worried that a poem invested in the particulars of my life would be uninteresting--that the "ordinary" would be mundane. Instead memory, dreams, and the associative power of the imagination filled each moment with meaning, each tv show I watched or friend I spoke with, each outfit I wore or nail polish color I chose. In these poems, a combination of dread (for something approaching) and anxiety (for what might be approaching but isn't yet known) undid a sense of the present separate from climate change, global racial capitalism, whiteness, and gender-based violence, especially as I wrote as I tried to find out how my own gender fit into the world. The prose poem is the vehicle by which a recording practice ("journaling") meets the associative power of the poem.

Meteorites are generally considered to be bizarre and exotic space junk that you only ever come across in museums. But the reality is very different. Meteorites are generally harmless, with the exception of a cow in Venezuela and a few dinosaurs. Well, quite a few dinosaurs in fact! They are arriving on Earth every day, everywhere, in the form of fine dust. The result is that meteorites can be collected from the rooftops of houses everywhere. It’s not easy and you need to know what to look for. This book will help. Meteorites are the oldest rocks in our Solar System and contain grains that are even older. These space rocks provide science with the best available evidence concerning the origin and early evolution of the Solar System. This book introduces the reader to the fascinating and sometimes bizarre world of space rocks using a simple, clear layman-friendly style. It explains why they are so special and describes their main characteristics. The non-technical approach used throughout the book make it particularly accessible to the general public and it will be of interest to anyone looking to learn more about these cosmic visitors and the wealth of scientific information they contain. Features: Provides a concise introduction to the world of meteorites in an accessible and non-technical way Demonstrates how meteorites can be found locally and provides practical guidance on how to search for them! Emphasizes the human side of meteorites and how ordinary people can and do encounter meteorites in a wide variety of settings

Among the rarest things on earth, meteorites carry an air of mystery and drama while having left a pervasive, outsized mark on our planet and civilization. In Meteorite, Maria Golia tells the long history of our engagement with these sky-born space rocks. Arriving amid thunderous blasts and flame-streaked skies, meteorites were once thought to be messengers from the gods. Worshipped in the past, now scrutinized with equal zeal by scientists, meteorites helped sculpt Earth’s features and have shaped our understanding of the planet’s origins. Prized for their outlandish qualities, meteorites are a collectible and a commodity, objects of art and artists’ desires and a literary muse; and ‘meteorite hunting’ is an adventurous, lucrative profession for some and an addictive hobby for thousands of others. A richly illustrated, remarkably wide-ranging account of the culture and science surrounding meteorites, Golia’s book explores the ancient, lasting power of the meteorite to inspire and awe.

"This is the definitive guide to finding meteorites, written by one of the best-known personalities in the field and co-host of the award-winning hit television series Meteorite Men. It includes detailed information on how to locate, excavate, and identify rocks from space, and is filled with photographs and insider information from an internationally recognized meteorite specialist." --Back cover.

Explores the world of meteorites, asteroids, and comets from the perspectives of science, folklore, and superstition.

In this riveting book, acclaimed journalist Kathy Sawyer reveals the deepest mysteries of space and some of the most disturbing truths on Earth. The Rock from Mars is the story of how two planets and the spheres of politics and science all collided at the end of the twentieth century. It began sixteen million years ago. An asteroid crashing into Mars sent fragments flying into space and, eons later, one was pulled by the Earth’s gravity onto an icy wilderness near the southern pole. There, in 1984, a geologist named Roberta Score spotted it, launching it on a roundabout path to fame and controversy. In its new home at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, the rock languished on a shelf for nine years, a victim of mistaken identity. Then, in 1993, the geochemist Donald “Duck” Mittlefehldt, unmasked the rock as a Martian meteorite. Before long, specialist Chris Romanek detected signs of once-living organisms on the meteorite. And the obscure rock became a rock star. But how did nine respected investigators come to make such startling claims about the rock that they triggered one of the most venomous scientific battles in modern memory? The narrative traces the steps that led to this risky move and follows the rippling impact on the scientists’ lives, the future of space exploration, the search for life on Mars, and the struggle to understand the origins of life on Earth. From the second the story broke in Science magazine in 1996, it spawned waves of excitement, envy, competitive zeal, and calculation. In academia, in government agencies, in laboratories around the world, and even in the Oval Office–where an inquisitive President Clinton had received the news in secret– players of all kinds plotted their next moves. Among them: David McKay, the dynamic geologist associated with the first moon landing, who labored to achieve at long last a second success; Bill Schopf of UCLA, a researcher determined to remain at the top of his field and the first to challenge McKay’s claims; Dan Goldin, the boss of NASA; and Dick Morris, the controversial presidential adviser who wanted to use the story for Clinton’s reelection and unfortunately made sure it ended up in the diary of a $200-an-hour call girl. Impeccably researched and thrillingly involving, Kathy Sawyer’s The Rock from Mars is an exemplary work of modern nonfiction, a vivid account of the all-too-human high-stakes drive to learn our true place in the cosmic scheme.