"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

"Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid."

While I find humor in that (under)statement, my assumption is that it was not meant to be comic, based on the tone of the rest of  the book, which is largely earnest. Its scope is vast, which is fitting for a book about life, the universe and everything, covering the history of existence generally--from all the way back to before that cosmic explosion known as the Big Bang--and specifically reviewing the history of science. And throughout it all, there is a well-deserved thread of awe.

Unsurprisingly, this book led me to think of things I’d never thought before. Like this: so many things in nature point to rebirth or renewal (the sunrise after the sunset, the reappearance of the sun after an eclipse, the return of the waxing crescent moon after a new moon). No wonder humans created the idea of life after death.

I definitely also learned things. How did I never before learn (or how do I not remember that I once learned) that the sun is at one of the two foci of each planet’s elliptical orbit? I mean, I knew that the planets have elliptical orbits rather than circular ones (although the orbits look more like circles than ellipses when just eyeballing it), but I always thought that the sun was right in the middle of those orbital paths, rather than shifted off-center. 

I just wish I could actually remember everything that I read in this book. I read books like this because I want the knowledge that exists in these books to exist in my head as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way (at least for me). And yet I don't regret the time I spent reading it, and won't give up trying with other similar books. Surely with each new thing that I read, I am forging connections with what I have learned in the past, and I am adding hooks upon which to hang other things I will learn in the future.