Reviews

Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science by Carl Sagan

madelix's review

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

Thoughts and reflections on different subjects. Some more enjoyable than others. 

gingernutpup's review

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

2.75

Interesting at times. But very long winded and complicated. 

mgouker's review

4.0

A collection of essays centered on science, especially discussions on cosmology and astronomy. The subjects vary from a background piece on Einstein to an interesting piece that compares discussions of those who return from the dead to the birth experience. Some pieces are typical only for the 70s such as the evaluation of Velikovsky's nonsense (my words... Sagan is too fair-minded for this opinion.) The section on climate change needs updating, lest it become ballast for those who might use it for their irresponsible agenda of denial, but that of course isn't going to happen. Listening to it, I can imagine how the oil industry would love to use it to express doubt about the obvious findings on how the environment suffers from the human footprint.

drako1357's review against another edition

5.0

Una colección de 25 ensayos/artículos que hablan de temas tan variados como Origen del Universo, Religión, Creación, Vida Extraterrestre, Misiones Espaciales y pensamiento Humano, que resulta una extraordinaria lectura.
Es el primer libro que leo de Sagan, después de ver la serie de Cosmos, y solo puedo decir que lo recomiendo ampliamente, (si eres una persona religiosa, mantén la mente abierta) La habilidad que tiene para explicar temas complicados de Ciencia en un lenguaje tan sencillo y asimilable me parece una extraordinaria metodología de escritura.

stephenmeansme's review

2.0

Mixed bag of a collection. I remember liking Sagan's DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD, and many of the pure pop-science essays in this collection are good. The skepticism stuff is thin, though, and some of the pure science is actually rather dry, maybe an unfortunate side effect of not much being known beyond some theoretical work. Sagan would almost certainly be overjoyed at the progress we've made in robotic exploration of our solar system and in telescopic exploration of all the others - exoplanetology is a whole field of study now!

2.5 stars rounded down. Didn't quite romance me.

HUNDRED BOOK CHALLENGE #10

murphyc1's review

5.0

Read this one years ago. What's stuck with me most clearly was the sensation of being struck by the clarity and the eloquence of Carl's writing. He's one of the few writers whose nonfiction books are emotional and intimate experiences. Reading them is magically close to sharing the author's company across impossible distances of space and time. The first peer of Sagan's on this count to come to my mind is Stephen King.

amber_lea84's review

3.0

This is really hard to rate because it reads more like a collection of essays than a book. I'd say a vast majority of it is about a 4 star read with two sections that really weren't doing it for me. It weirdly ends with Sagan talking about whether or not it's possible for us to remember our own births. I probably would have given it four stars if he hadn't ending on that note because that was a bit weird.

But I love Sagan's optimism for the future. I feel like reading this now, when everything feels like a complete dumpster fire, is really comforting. It's a nice reminder that the world still has potential and no matter how shitty things get science is still really freakin' cool.

mhaccunoval's review

informative mysterious reflective

3.0

a bit disorganized as far as how things connect but at the same time very much the romance of science. sometimes the science is dense but all around very informative and chapters 23 & 24 + the final page of chapter 25 were some of my favorites

corymojojojo's review against another edition

4.0

4.5. I very rarely (and even then, usually unsuccessfully) read non-fiction, so I surprised myself when I devoured this book or, frankly, even started it in the first place. I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised though because of how much I’ve come to admire Car Sagan and his work over the years. Not only did he have a spectacularly scientific and critical mind, but he was one of the best communicators of scientific thoughts and ideas across mediums, but especially through the written word. Broca’s Brain is a bit disjointed—being more of a survey of many different topics presented in relatively short articles, loosely organized, than a unified book—but Sagan’s writing is so engaging and enlightening that I appreciated the variety presented. Some chapters were undoubtedly more engaging than others, but Sagan’s thoughts on religion and the universe from a cosmological perspective I found to be especially profound. I’m sure more of the science-based chapters are somewhat out-of-date at this point (as is the way of science, one of the things that makes it special), but that doesn’t take away from the methods of critical thinking that Sagan unceasingly teaches in his philosophy of being an ever-growing and ever-open mind.

ghostroom217's review

3.0

Hit and miss chapters.