Nice and maybe amazing
The book aims to amaze the reader with our universe and its content.
This is not a book for a Monday morning when the primary color seems to be gray and when you dream of your fourth cup of coffee before nine o'clock but drink herbal tea for sanity reasons.
On the other hand, you might want to give it a try and grab "Everything is Made of Stardust" at this point in time to enjoy one of the really short chapters - you could also say tidbits - to your heart's content. Possibly that would divert attention from the whine of adenosine receptors and instead draw attention to our wonderful world and the incredible universe around it.
It was written and illustrated by English author and illustrator Ella Frances Sanders. It describes astonishing findings that are of a scientific, mostly astrophysical and cosmological nature. Of course, it explains why we are all made of stardust, as well as how many bacteria our bodies contain. She writes why there is a smell in space, if one could smell it - answer: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - and how the star distance measurement works using the parallax method. Linnaeus' classification system and the color blue are also topics.
The whole thing is of course also illustrated, and the illustrations are good because they don't look like the usual visualizations from science. Although the book is bursting with scientific knowledge, it is not primarily written to inform. It would like to arouse a smaller, but also larger astonishment in the reader about our universe and its content. So probably the best time to read this book is while listening to a singer/songwriter, such a very young person with an acoustic guitar, a beautiful voice and uplifting melodies, and when the herbal tea really tastes good instead of not being a real alternative.
If you don't like this style, you won't be able to do much with the book, despite its nice qualities. Thus, the book is not very suitable for readers with previous knowledge, but perhaps as a gift, especially for younger readers. As I said, it is nicely done and a quick read, and the inhibition threshold to approach such a title instead of desperately serious-looking popular science alternatives should be lower.
