ⓜ Turn right at Orion?
(And Then I Wrote…) In order to let my backlog of “Across the Universe” columns build up a bit, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written and published in various places… This was one of my favorite book reviews… I got to be snarky and still give the book an enthusiastic thumb’s up! The review ran in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences in 2001. Turn Right at Orion: Travels Through the Cosmos by Mitchell Begelman. Perseus Publishing/Helix Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2000, 264 pp. I have to admit, I had every reason to hate this book before I even cracked open a page. As the co-author myself of a bestselling astronomy book called Turn LEFT at Orion (published more than ten years ago by Cambridge University Press, with a new edition just out), I obviously have my own opinion about how to find one’s way around the galaxy! And the plot device of this book, … Continue reading →