Scientists by the thousands around the world are engaged in a broad and increasingly successful search for the origins of life on Earth and for traces of life elsewhere in our universe. My book seeks to bring to life the science and some of the scientists at the center of the effort. “First Contact” was published by Simon & Schuster in April, 2011.
Order First Contact today.
“First Contact” Selected for National Book Festival
Here are headliners, and some of us others fortunate enough to be selected for the nation’s premiere book fair.
May 24, 2011
McCullough, Morrison, Mukherjee, Egan, Banks, Eggers, McMillan, Keillor, Chua Headline 2011 National Book FestivalEvent Expands to Two Days on National Mall, Sept. 24-25
World-renowned authors David McCullough, Russell Banks, Dave Eggers, Terry McMillan, Pulitzer Prize-winners Siddhartha Mukherjee and Jennifer Egan, Garrison Keillor, Amy Chua and Nobel- and Pulitzer Prize-winner Toni Morrison will be among more than 80 writers speaking at the 11th annual National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress, on Saturday, Sept. 24 and Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011, between 9th and 14th streets on the National Mall. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.
Other authors slated to appear at the festival include Edmund Morris, Louis Bayard, Isabel Wilkerson, pianist Leon Fleisher, former Poet Laureate Rita Dove, Hoda Kotb of the “Today” show, Gregory Maguire, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Katherine Paterson, television newsman Jim Lehrer, actress/children’s book author Julianne Moore and Esmeralda Santiago.
The 2011 National Book Festival will feature authors, poets and illustrators in several pavilions, including two new genre pavilions: Urban Fiction and Graphic Novels. Festival-goers can meet and hear firsthand from their favorite authors, get books signed, have photos taken with PBS storybook characters and participate in a variety of activities. Some 150,000 book fans attended the 10th-anniversary festival in 2010.
Celebrating the joys of reading aloud will be the theme of this 11th National Book Festival. Details will come soon to the website at www.loc.gov/bookfest/. The website offers a variety of features, and new material will be added to the website as authors continue to join this year’s lineup.
Joel Achenbach, Sherman Alexie, Mary Brigid Barrett, Calef Brown, Cassandra Clare, Susan Cooper, Michael Cunningham, Joshua Foer, Eric Foner, Jack Gantos, Margaret George, Adam Goodheart, Mary Gordon, Jessica Harris, Joe Hayes, Terrance Hayes, Maya Jasanoff, William Joyce, Marc Kaufman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Gordon Korman, Uma Krishnaswami, Sam McBratney, Patricia McKissack, John Bemelmans Marciano, Sylvia Nasar, Kadir Nelson, Sara Paretsky, Linda Pastan, Carla L. Peterson, Allen Say, Gary Schmidt, Elizabeth Hun Schmidt, Sarah Vowell, Douglas Waller, and Jonathan Yardley.
Radio interviews and videos from NPR’s Fresh Air, SETI Institute talk, Google talk:
During NASA’s conference celebrating 50 years of this effort, I was asked to describe my book by the good people from TEDx. Here is my reply:
Seeking Signs of Life: Celebrating 50 Years of Exobiology and Astrobiology at NASA
http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/author/marc_kaufman
Stephen Colbert on the Vatican and Life Beyond Earth
One of my reporting stops was in Rome, where the Vatican was holding a conference on astrobiology, convened by the Pontifical Academy of Science and including some of the world’s best and brightest. I wrote a story about it for The Post Outlook section, which was picked up by papers, television stations and bloggers around the globe. It also caught the eye of Steven Colbert. Here are links to the story and to Colbert’s take on some of what I reported, as played out in an interview with astronomer and Jesuit priest Guy Consolmagno.
