Wednesday, November 2, 2022

The Smallest Lights in the Universe by Sara Seager

In this luminous memoir, an MIT astrophysicist must reinvent herself in the wake of tragedy and discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth.

Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets—especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager's husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe.

As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex. Most unexpected of all, there is another kind of one-in-a-billion match, not in the stars but here at home.

Probing and invigoratingly honest, The Smallest Lights in the Universe is its own kind of light in the dark.

308 pages (August 2020)

 
Lit Guide from LitLovers.
To find a discussion guide for this book in the NoveList Plus database, go to the Library's website, click on Novelist under "We Recommend" → "Book Services". Click on "Book Discussion Guides" in the right sidebar on NoveList's home page. Then, either enter the title in the Search box or search for the title alphabetically. (You will need your Salt Lake County Library card number to access this resource outside a county library.)
 
 
 

Sara Seager on CTV Your Morning:


This title is available for download as an eBook and as an eAudioBook. Learn more about downloadables from the library here.

Title Read-alikes: The Disordered Cosmos: a journey into dark matter, spacetime, and dreams deferred by Chandra Prescod-Weinstein; Lab Girl by Hope Jahren; The Inward Empire: mapping the wilds of mortality and fatherhood by Christian Donian; Wired for Love: a neuroscientist's journey through romance, loss, and the essence of human connection by Stephanie Cacioppo; I Have Been Buried Under Years of Dust: a memoir of autism and hope by Valerie Gilpeer; Mother Brain: how neuroscience is rewriting the story of parenthood by Chelsea Conaboy; The Perpetual Now: a story of amnesia, memory, and love by Michael D Lemonick; Little Matches: a memoir of grief and light by Maryanne O'Hara; The Seasons of My Mother: a memoir of love, family, and flowers by Marcia Gay Harden; Nothing Was the Same by Kay Redfield Jamison; Unreliable Truth: on memoir and memory by Maureen Murdock; My Stroke of Insight: a brain scientist's personal journey by Jill Bolte Taylor; and Until I Say Good-Bye: my year of living with joy by Susan Spencer-Wendel.

No comments:

Post a Comment