Lost in Wonder: imagining science and other mysteries
Cultures have always had special terms for those who worked at the far edge of knowledge – mystics, shamans, alchemists, magicians, priests. Now we call them scientists, and they still scare us.
Finalist/Honorable Mention, 2010 Grub Street National Book Prize in Nonfiction
“Nonfiction prose writer Colette Brooks first read at Elliott Bay for her PEN-Jerard Fund Award-winning meditation on cities, In the City: Random Acts of Awareness. She’s here now with a new book on another form of awareness, Lost in Wonder: Imagining Science and Other Mysteries (Counterpoint). This is a readerly and writerly bridge between the casually informed layperson and the ‘expert’- the latter a category to which so much scientific weight in the culture has been assigned (or allowed) – as if others don’t have a serious stake in participating and perceiving. Again, awareness, which includes wariness within it, along with much deep pleasure. Billy Collins’ comments for In the City seems apt for Lost in Wonder: ‘A lively mix of narrative, reportage, memoir, and meditative essay. This is an engaging book, so fraught with self-consciousness as to bring into question our notions of writing and literary structure.'”
– Elliott Bay Book Company
Colette Brooks 