This Ordinary Stardust
A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
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3.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"[A] remarkable account of a shifting consciousness” - Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“An extraordinary, powerful book” - David Quammen, author of The Heartbeat of the Wild and Breathless
A compassionate exploration of scientific wonder that offers “a fresh perspective on life, death, and the bittersweet consequences of impermanence,” (Jon Krakauer) as illuminated through the tragic dual cancer diagnoses of author Dr. Alan Townsend’s wife and daughter.
A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable, catastrophic diagnoses: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant scientist wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a lifeboat: a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.
At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, THIS ORDINARY STARDUST offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biologist Townsend recounts in his gut-wrenching debut memoir how the cancer diagnoses of his wife and daughter reshaped his ideas about scientific inquiry. When Townsend's daughter, Neva, was four, an MRI revealed a tumor in her pituitary gland that could only be removed with invasive brain surgery. While Neva recovered from that procedure, Townsend's wife, fellow scientist Diana, discovered she had two deadly, inoperable glioblastoma brain tumors. As Townsend navigated the ups and downs of Diana's illness for the final year of her life—and of counseling Neva through it, at one point allaying her concerns that she'd passed the cancer onto her mother—he began to think in new ways about his chosen profession. He found solace in the idea that people consist of "trillions of outer-space atoms, moving around temporarily as one, sensing and seeing and falling in love" before scattering to join "a new team." Therefore, microscopic pieces of loved ones live forever. Such musings, rendered in lyrical but not too precious prose, convincingly mix with the book's more somber passages to produce a powerful message of hope, which Townsend accentuates with loving, indelible portraits of Neva and Diana. The result is a remarkable account of a shifting consciousness that's likely to shift the reader's own.
Customer Reviews
Beautiful tribute
To a life well lived.