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These recently published books are perfect reads for fall. 

Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life 

By Nathalie A. Cabrol 

Scribner, 320 pages 

This book is a primer on the search for life beyond Earth. 

As director of the Carl Sagan Center for Research at the SETI Institute, astrobiologist Nathalie A. Cabrol’s work is focused on answering the question of whether we’re alone in the universe. 

In The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life, readers won’t walk away with a clear-cut answer to that question. But they’ll have a newfound appreciation for the massive scientific undertaking that is moving closer toward finding one. 

Cabrol writes that we’re in the midst of a “golden age of astrobiology,” and her book is an awe-inspiring and lucid primer for the general public on her field.  

That golden age is highlighted by images captured by the Webb Space Telescope that have transformed the public’s understanding of the universe. 

From the moon to planets that mirror settings from Star Wars, Cabrol takes readers on a descriptive tour of the universe and the building blocks of life that scientists continue to chase. 

Her writing and effort to broaden the public’s appreciation of the universe’s jaw-dropping vastness is unsurprisingly reminiscent of Sagan, the popular astronomer and namesake of the center she leads. And, like Sagan, she makes a compelling case for why we may not be alone in the universe. 

Cabrol also offers a fascinating preview of future space missions that may help answer that question. 

But, most importantly, she illustrates how understanding the nature of life in the universe may help underscore the need to address the challenges facing what for now remains a lonely, pale-blue dot. —Andrew DeMillo 

On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything 

By Nate Silver 

Penguin Random House, 576 pages 

By the time you finish Nate Silver’s new book, you’ll probably want to do something risky. 

Not for the sake of adrenaline or to the point of being reckless, but because you might be convinced that the occasional gamble — more than most people are comfortable with — is worth it. 

In On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Silver compellingly theorizes that humans are in general too risk averse, and that those who can discerningly fight that impulse often benefit greatly in life. 

In addition to his day job as a forecaster, statistician and writer — which made him a recognizable name — Silver is an accomplished poker player. He fittingly, then, begins his analysis of those with high tolerances for risk through a detailed look at the game and those who play it. 

It turns out, Silver argues, poker players, astronauts and hedge fund managers have more in common than people may assume, even on a physiological level.  

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk,” Mark Zuckerberg famously said — a widely-held sentiment in Silicon Valley that Silver explores at length in this book. 

Given his knowledge of and affinity for poker, Silver tends to belabor that lens through which he looks — perhaps to a fault. Those uninterested in stats or strategies may have a hard time getting through this book.  

But if you don’t mind, or are intrigued by, the game, Silver eventually broadens his cohort, notably in what might be his most interesting chapter discussing the “habits of highly successful risk-takers.” 

Although Silver admittedly spends a lot of time talking about poker, On the Edge is a thought-provoking interdisciplinary book that covers a host of timely topics from artificial intelligence to political theory and what happens when risk takers go too far.  

—Krysta Fauria 

Kent State: An American Tragedy 

By Brian VanDeMark 

W. W. Norton & Company, 413 pages 

More than a half century has passed since Ohio National Guard members opened fire on college students during a war protest at Kent State University, killing four students and injuring nine others. 

In Kent State: An American Tragedy, historian Brian VanDeMark recounts a country that had split into two warring camps that would not and could not understand each other. The description of the nation leading up to the 1970 tragedy echoes today’s politics and divisions in many ways.  

“It was a tense, suspicious, and combustible atmosphere that required only a spark to ignite a tragedy,” VanDeMark writes. 

VanDeMark succeeds at helping readers understand that atmosphere, creating a chilling narrative of the spark and ensuing tragedy at Kent State. In less than 13 seconds, 30 guardsmen fired 67 shots at protesters in an event where “the Vietnam War came home and the Sixties came to an end,” he writes. 

With a straightforward writing style, VanDeMark provides both a micro and macro look at the events leading up to the shootings — examining the growing dissent against the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and how it rippled across Kent State’s campus. 

VanDeMark relies on a host of new material, including interviews with some of the guardsmen, to reconstruct the protests on campus and the shooting. He also recounts the investigations and legal fights that ensued following the shooting. 

Kent State portrays a campus that grappled for years with its legacy, with no official memorial to the slain students erected on campus until two decades later, in 1990.  

A new visitors center devoted to the shooting that opened in 2012 suggested an emerging consensus about the tragedy, writes VanDeMark, whose work may contribute to that consensus as well.  

—Andrew DeMillo 

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