Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are

by Rebecca Boyle (Random House, $28)

“Nothing has preoccupied humanity quite like our fascination with the moon,” said Cory Oldweiler in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. From the beginning of human history, “explorers, worshippers, inventors, dreamers, scientists, and zealots all have been inspired by its presence.” But while Rebecca Boyle’s absorbing new book amply celebrates the moon’s effect on our understanding of our place in the cosmos, the Scientific American writer also emphasizes that the moon hasn’t needed our attention to be essential to life on Earth. “Boyle is at her best describing thorny scientific concepts.” And whether she’s discussing astronomy or early religions, her passion for this subject is “evident on every page.”

“Boyle finds the moon in places I would never think to look,” said Katrina Miller

in The New York Times. The history she shares begins with the moon’s birth. The moon, Boyle writes, is “more sibling than subordinate”—composed of the same stuff and, if a recent theory is correct, created when a small planet collided with a proto-Earth and sent spinning debris into an orbit of its own. The moon’s presence stabilized Earth’s tilt, and thus its climate. And its gravitational force governs the tides, arguably pulling primitive organisms into the planet’s nutrient-rich oceans and pushing out more complex creatures that then learned to walk. When humans arrived, they looked at the moon and what they saw led to the development of timekeeping, various religions, sustainable agriculture, and science itself. Previously, I considered Earth’s only satellite a bit dull; “Boyle has convinced me the moon is anything but.”

“The strength of Our Moon comes from its gorgeous writing and vast scope,” said Angela Chen in Undark magazine.

“In today’s age of private spaceflight and prospective lunar mining,” the moon has become a site of geopolitical contestation, and Boyle reports on that development too. “Now, as humanity’s grasp continues to expand, it’s time to make decisions about the moon’s legacy and its future, ideally ones that protect it from overreach.”