'It's the most astonishing thing'

 

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you." - Carl Sagan

 

Born in New York City on Nov. 9, 1934 Sagan was an astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist and astrobiologist who also wrote more than 600 articles and was author, co-author or editor of 20 books.  His novel Contact was the basis for a popular movie, and he co-wrote and narrated Cosmos, one of the most widely watched series in the history of American public television.  He died of pneumonia at the young age of 61, but just before his death he spoke the wonderful words above about the power and mystery of books.

 

A graduate of the University of Chicago, where he earned three degrees, he was a longtime professor at Cornell University.  Among his many popular science books were The Dragons of Eden, Broca’s Brain and Pale Blue Dot.  

 

“Writing," Sagan said, "is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other; citizens of distant epochs.  Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."