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This Ordinary Stardust - Alan Townsend PhD - 2024
A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
By: Alan Townsend PhD
Narrated by: Alan Townsend PhD
Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
Unabridged Audiobook
Release date: 06-04-24
Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Professionals & Academics, Grief & Loss
Language: English
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Format: mp3 64/48 stereo
"[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.
©2024 Alan Townsend (P)2024 Grand Central Publishing
Critic reviews
"[A] remarkable account of a shifting consciousness that's likely to shift the reader's own."—Publisher's Weekly, starred review
"This is not a book that provides easy answers to life’s most difficult questions, but one that suggests plausible means of reconceiving our place within a relentlessly fluid universe. An insightful exploration of loss and the role of intellectual curiosity and spiritual openness in addressing it."—Kirkus
"This Ordinary Stardust is a wondrous book that reduced me to tears and brought me a fresh perspective on life, death, and the bittersweet consequences of impermanence. It also happens to be a page turner I couldn’t put down."—Jon Krakauer
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