Nonfiction Book Reviews

The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space by Jim Lebans

Full Title: The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space: 42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, The Universe, and Everything
Author: Jim Lebans
Publication Date: February, 2008
Length: 240 pages
Available from: Amazon / Barnes and Noble / AbeBooks

It is books like The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space by Jim Lebans that make it so much fun to write nonfiction book reviews.  I was sitting downstairs at the library other day, taking a break and reading (of course) when a coworker came into the break room.  “Hey, whatcha reading?” he asked.

“The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Space,” I answered.

“I’m sorry I asked,” he grumbled.

Really?  I had to think for a minute (I was a bit slow on the uptake that morning, what can I say?) before I realized that the title of the book was probably intimidating to him.  Which made me laugh, since this is one of the most readable (and enjoyable!) books on space that I’ve ever read.

If you’ve ever read Douglas Adams’ book Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you’ll know that the answer “to everything” is 42.  Which is why, when I’m feeling particularly drop-dead hilarious, my answer to someone’s statement of, “Hey, Havilah, I have a question,” is my instantaneous reply of “42.”  I have yet to have anyone realize why it is that I pick that number.  Apparently, even librarians aren’t as smart as you might think they are.  (Don’t tell my coworkers I said that).

Well, Quirks and Quarks takes 42 questions about space and answers them in an easy, funny, and understandable way.  At the beginning of each chapter, the title of the chapter is the question it’s asking, and the chapter itself of course is the answer.  The questions and answers build on each other, so I wouldn’t advise skipping around in the book.  The 15th question is “What Will Happen When an Asteroid Hits?” and I think the answer is a pretty good sample of the writing style of Lebans:

The chance that you’ll die as the result of an asteroid striking Earth isn’t huge, but it’s higher than you might think.  Scientists have put the number at around 1 in 20,000, about the same odds of dying in a passenger jet crash, and maybe a little higher than the chances of dying in a mobile home when a tornado hits.  In fact, your chance of dying in an asteroid impact is far greater than the odds that the lottery ticket in your pocket will win you the multi-million-dollar jackpot this week…

When comparing asteroid impacts to plane crashes or tornadoes, however, the stats aren’t helpful.  They’re comparing apples to oranges, or rather tragedies and catastrophes.  In a tornado or a plane crash, anywhere between a few and a few hundred people might lose their lives.  In a large asteroid impact, the numbers could be in the millions, possibly the billions.  That’s the real statistic to be worried about.  There’s a small chance that a large asteroid will hit the Earth in your lifetime, but if it does, you will most likely be in a very large line-up at the gateway to paradise.

~Page 73 – 74 of Quirks and Quarks

Perhaps I’m just a space junkie (all right, all right, I’ll admit it: I’m obsessed!) but I thought this book was fantastic. Some of the other books that I have read about space (like Death from the Skies or Physics of the Impossible) try to take very complicated subjects and break them down by using analogies. Quirks and Quarks doesn’t even attempt the complicated subjects, but instead simply skips over them entirely.  I’m not exactly an expert on astronomy, and even I realized that there were gaps in what Lebans was presenting to his readers.

I think the difference here is the fact that both Death and Physics were written by astronomers/scientists, whereas Quirks was written by producer for a science radio show. That’s quite a difference. Now, everything in Quirks was vetted by astronomers and scientists so there isn’t anything of a questionable scientific nature in here (in other words, this is solid science, not some amateur’s idea of what’s happening out there) but in the end, what you end up with is a great book for beginners who are wanting a very broad overview of astronomy and space without much scientific mumbo-jumbo in there.

For those who are better versed in astronomy, however, you won’t find anything new in here although you may be entertained while you look.

My only real critique is that some of the answers overlapped a bit, so that the two (or three) answers ended up with some of the same information in them. It’s almost as if the author was stretching, trying to come up with “just a few more” questions in order to meet the 42 mark. That was a small drawback to me, although I’m good at skimming *ahem* speed-reading, so that wasn’t huge to me.

Overall, I give The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space by Jim Lebans 4.5 out of 5 stars. If you enjoy nicely written, entertaining, and informational books on astronomy, then be sure to pick this one up.