The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

Look out your window and see the moon, stars and distant planets. Light years away, it's easy to think that our lives and their existences will never intersect. Yet meteorites - tiny, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights. Helen Gordon, author of the acclaimed Notes from Deep Time, tells the stories of meteorites which have fallen to Earth and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to saints. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across the rooftops of London and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about life - and death - on Earth.

Reviews

Gripping, deft and riveting. Gordon moves with total mastery from the human to the cosmic and back again -- Noreen Masud, author * A Flat Place *
Praise for Notes from Deep Time: Astounding ... To call this a "history" does not do justice to Helen Gordon's ambition ... Sheer intellectual and poetical entertainment -- Simon Ings * Daily Telegraph *
Profoundly considered and far-reaching ... Notes from Deep Time reaches into a place that, in a post-religious era, offers a glimpse of something close to eternity * FT *
A marvel-rich masterclass of narrative non-fiction, one of those books that teaches its reader to see the world completely differently -- Max Porter
Awe-inspiring * Mail on Sunday *

Author Bio

Helen Gordon is a writer and natural historian. Her books include Being and Writer and Notes from Deep Time, and a novel, Landfall. She has written for the 1843 magazine, the Guardian, Wired and Granta, and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire.