Still As Bright: An Illuminating History of the Moon, from Antiquity to Tomorrow

(Hardback)

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An immersive exploration of the nightly presence that has captured our imagination for the entirety of human history.

"When the Moon rises between buildings or over trees, its not just a beautiful light: Its an archive of human longing, fear and adventure. The Moon is more than a rock. Its a story.

In the luminously told Still As Bright, the story of the Moon traverses time and space, rendering a range of human experiencesfrom the beliefs of ancient cultures to the science of Galileos telescopic discoveries, from the obsessions of colorful 19th century selenographers to the astronauts of Apollo and, now, Artemis.

Still As Bright also traces Cokinos's own lunar pilgrimage. With his backyard telescope, he explores the surface of the Moon, while rooted in places both domestic and wild, and this award-winning poet and writer rediscovers feelings of solace, love and wonder in the midst of loss and change.

Simultaneously steeped in rigorous cultural and scientific history, as well as memoir, Still As Bright is a thoughtful, deeply moving, evergreen natural history. It takes readers on a lyrical journey that spans the human understanding of our closest celestial neighbor, whose multi-faceted appeal has worked on witches, scientists, poets, engineers and even billionaires.

Still As Bright is a must-read for anyone who has ever looked up into the night sky in awe and wonder. Readers will never look at the Moon the same way again.

Reviews

"It's rare for a book to turn science into lyricism, to weave between past and present seamlessly, and to transform personal history into a universal meditation. Still As Bright accomplishes all three, an even rarer feat. In this awe-inspiring exploration of what the Moon has meant to Earth and its people, Cokinos draws the two celestial bodies into philosophical, cultural, emotional, and scientific orbit around each other, mirroring in his text their mutual motion in the cosmos." * Sarah Scoles, author ofThe Are Already Here *
Cokinos has a way of inviting us to enter new worlds while transporting us to thoughts we havent yet had. Its action and meditation in balance: by the end, we know ourselves better than we did.Still as Brightis going to be remembered as a masterpiece of ecological and philosophical exploration, taking its place beside the works of Terry Tempest Williams and Barry Lopez, Robert McFarlane and Annie Dillard.

* Michael Paterniti, National Magazine Award Winner and author ofThe Telling RoomandDriving Mr. Albert *
Still as Brightshowcases Cokinoss peerless talent for braiding personal experience with epic scientific adventureand in the process, conjures an alchemy of love, heartache, mystery, and wonder. This rumination on the Moons place in human affairs is filled with surprise and insight enough to fill the Sea of Rains." * Earl Swift, best-selling author ofChesapeake Requiem *
Praise for Christopher Cokinos

Eloquent and moving...a charming narrative that is both personal and historically meticulous." * The Washington Post Book World *
"In this hefty, industrious book, Cokinos retraces Pearys steps, and those of other meteor 'obsessives,' in an idiosyncratic hunt of his own." * The New Yorker *
Cokinos guides the reader along his search for the driving force behind the passions of meteorite scientists, collectors, and dealers that make the meteoritic community such a vibrant and contentious bunch. It is a journey well worth taking. * Science *
Calling this a bird book would be like calling Moby Dick a fishing story." * The Baltimore Sun *

Author Bio

Christopher Cokinos is the author of The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Starsand Hope Is the Thing with Feathers: A Personal Chronicle of Vanished Birds.Hisarticles, poems and essays about space and astronomy have been published inSky & Telescope, The Space Review, Astronomy.com, SkyNews and the Los Angeles Times, and other works have been featured inNPRs All Things Considered, USA Today, People, Science, The New Yorker, Nature and Michio Kakus Science Fantastic. He is the recipientof awards and fellowships from Rachel Carson Center in Munich, the Whiting Foundation, the National Science Foundation,the John Burroughs Prize for Best Natural History Essay, the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and more.After more than three decades of teaching at three different universities, he now lives and writes in Utah.