clear sailing

I just (literally) finished book 1 of 52 non-fictions in 2010. When I decided to do it I threw a handful (5-6) on the library's request list and the first two to come were The Pluto Files by Neil deGrasse Tyson and God is not Great by Christopher Hitchens (also Marvel's Marvels, which I'd never read, was excellent, and must buy this 10th anniversary edition down the line). I'm trying to consciously not make the book a bunch of atheism literature, hoping to mix in some (auto)biographies, some history, some science, whathave you. With that in mind I went to Pluto Files first and could not be happier I did.

I, like everyone else who knows who he is and has an IQ over room temperature, have a massive man-crush on Tyson, but have only ever seen him on TV–and even then haven't caught a ton of the show he hosted–and YouTube & such. I remember seeing him discuss this book on The Daily Show and wanting to read it, but it must have slipped my mind. The book is way entertaining, like Mr. Tyson himself tends to be, and is written "popularly" so that the less smart of us can understand, which makes sense because the type of people discussed in the book (he namechecks Bill Nye a few times. Win.) don't need to be taught the stuff. I learned quite a bit. Especially about the discovery of Pluto, how much went in to the "Dwarf planet" decision and people's reactions and shizz. I was genuinely entertained by the whole thing. The stand out bit of funny in it, though, comes at the end of a chapter as he was wrapping up discussion on astrologers and their reactions. The chapter ends with one simple sentence: "Please tell your children to stay in school."

I'm not going to grade the books or anything, just catalogue them as read and note whether or not I enjoyed them, learned anything,