Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme where we randomly select a book from our Goodreads To Be Read list and share it with the world. It’s hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners, so be sure to link back to her site so that we can all see what everyone plans to read!

Cosmos: Possible Worlds
by Ann Druyan
Nonfiction/Science
384 pages
Published February 25, 2020 by National Geographic Society

From Goodreads: This sequel to Carl Sagan’s blockbuster continues the electrifying journey through space and time, connecting with worlds billions of miles away and envisioning a future of science tempered with wisdom.

Based on National Geographic’s internationally-renowned television series, this groundbreaking and visually stunning book explores how science and civilization grew up together. From the emergence of life at deep-sea vents to solar-powered starships sailing through the galaxy, from the Big Bang to the intricacies of intelligence in many life forms, acclaimed author Ann Druyan documents where humanity has been and where it is going, using her unique gift of bringing complex scientific concepts to life. With evocative photographs and vivid illustrations, she recounts momentous discoveries, from the Voyager missions in which she and her husband, Carl Sagan, participated to Cassini-Huygens’s recent insights into Saturn’s moons. This breathtaking sequel to Sagan’s masterpiece explains how we humans can glean a new understanding of consciousness here on Earth and out in the cosmos–again reminding us that our planet is a pale blue dot in an immense universe of possibility.

Carl Sagan was one of the best science communicators of the late Twentieth century. He explained complex topics with eloquence and never talked down to his audience, which helped him draw people to look at the wonders of the universe. His widow, Ann Druyan, shares his love of science and all the amazing things it shows us about the Earth and the greater universe we live in. Druyan worked alongside Sagan on the Voyager project in the 1970s and helped choose the music and other culture samples that were included on the golden record that accompanied the Voyager probes on the off chance that they encounter alien life as they sail farther from the solar system. Given her long career in science and her relationship with Sagan, Druyan is uniquely suited to write a follow-up to Sagan’s brilliant Cosmos.