Book Review: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

by Mike Brown

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was the funniest, most interesting, and informative book I've read for a few months. I absolutely loved it. The author is Mike Brown, one of the astronomers responsible for Pluto no longer being a planet. The book is his story leading up to and during the decision making process.

When I was a kid, I used to sleep outside on the trampoline in the summer time all by myself with a constellations map. I would stay up really late and see what I could see. I find the sky fascinating, but could never really get past the math of it. This book is written for people like me. All the big scientific stuff, he dumbs down and puts into terms we can comprehend. And it's not just one long spiel about astronomy stuff either. He ties in a lot about how he met his wife, and about their little daughter. And he tells jokes, and is very entertaining. His thought process reminds me so much of Aaron's, which is probably why I find him humorous and entertaining. His writing style is very similar to the style I try to use when I write (he does a better job of it than I do, however.) It was an all around great read. Plus, I feel like I learned a few things, and I now understand why it makes sense that Pluto is not a planet, and some other very interesting things about our solar system. It's an easy read, I think it took me three days, but only because we're in the middle of packing to move, so I couldn't really drop everything. And it's kind of suspenseful. I highly recommend this book.