Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

I highly recommend this book to people like me: curious and interested, intelligent (somewhat) and reasonably well-educated, but not an astrophysicist or anything like one. My only gripe is that other reviews had me expecting something more marvelous; this is good but not marvelous.

Also, I find Tyson's philosophy to be sweet but naïve. The whole, “The universe is so big, we must be nice to each other,” as much as I agree with it, is unmoving. Since according to the materialist philosophy the author and non-theists in general espouse, there is no ultimate meaning to existence itself, no purpose to life, the universe, or anything, there is no authority or reason for choosing a way of going through life (being nice or nasty, for instance) other than what one happens to prefer. So Tyson prefers a nice approach. I am very glad he does. But I don't know why, if he is right about the meaninglessness of everything, anybody else should care.

Anyway, I'm being a philosophical grouch. Don't let my grouchiness spoil a good book for you. Read it. Enjoy it. Learn from it. See the world with bigger eyes, or see a bigger world with the same old eyes.