Why am I passionate about this?
I was never going to hack it as a scientist. So I became a journalist instead. After all, both careers stem from a sense of wonder about the world and asking questions, looking for answers, and accepting that there might not be any. In 2018, I started my narrative podcast Wild Thing, which let me explore some of our weirder collective fascinations (like aliens) using science, history, psychology, and humor. I’d never aimed the podcast at kids, but I realized that all those big open-ended questions that I had about everything were the same kinds of questions that kids had - which really set me up to write the Wild Thing book series.
Laura's book list on the search for alien life
Why did Laura love this book?
Fred was a pilot. He also was an avid ufologist. In October 1978, on a short flight in a private plane from Melbourne to King Island in Australia, Fred has a conversation with air traffic control and claims to see a large aircraft — a UFO — flying around him… until it vanishes.
That is Fred’s last conversation with anyone as both he and his plane disappear, never to be found. Was it an alien craft? Pilot error? Weather phenomenon?
There are no answers in Krasnostein’s chapters about Fred. But the story and her lyrical writing left me thinking about the nature of belief, the fascination we have with UFOs, and why we want our alien encounters to be real. Why do we want to believe?
1 author picked The Believer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A New Yorker Best Book of 2022
A Best Book of the Month at The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Deeply beautiful, and never simple.” ―James Gleick, author of Time Travel: A History
An unforgettable tour of the human condition that explores our universal need for belief to help us make sense of life, death, and everything in between.
For Sarah Krasnostein it begins with a Mennonite choir performing on a subway platform, a fleeting moment of witness that sets her on a fascinating journey to discover why people need to believe in absolute truths and what happens when their beliefs crash into…
- Coming soon!