Anna Quindlen, on books:

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road.

They are the destination, and the journey.

They are home.

- Anna Quindlen.

Recommended reading - 3 books by Carl Sagan

 

 

Cosmos

Published 1980.
 
ISBN-10: 9780345539434
ISBN-13: 978-0345539434
 
Description:
 
With a new Foreword by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
 

This visually stunning book with over 250 full-color illustrations, many of them never before published, is based on Carl Sagan’s thirteen-part television series. Told with Sagan’s remarkable ability to make scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting, Cosmos is about science in its broadest human context, how science and civilization grew up together.

 

The book also explores spacecraft missions of discovery of the nearby planets, the research in the Library of ancient Alexandria, the human brain, Egyptian hieroglyphics, the origin of life, the death of the Sun, the evolution of galaxies and the origins of matter, suns and worlds.

 

Sagan retraces the fifteen billion years of cos-mic evolution that have transformed matter into life and consciousness, enabling the Cosmos to wonder about itself. He considers the latest findings on life elsewhere and how we might communicate with the beings of other worlds.

 

Cosmos is the story of our long journey of discovery and the forces and individuals who helped to shape modern science, including Democritus, Hypatia, Kepler, Newton, Huy-gens, Champollion, Lowell and Humason. Sagan looks at our planet from an extra-terrestrial vantage point and sees a blue jewel-like world, inhabited by a lifeform that is just beginning to discover its own unity and to venture into the vast ocean of space.

 

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Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Published 1994.
 
ISBN-10: 0345376595
ISBN-13: 978-0345376596
 
Description:
 
In Cosmos, the late astronomer Carl Sagan cast his gaze over the magnificent mystery of the Universe and made it accessible to millions of people around the world. Now in this stunning sequel, Carl Sagan completes his revolutionary journey through space and time.
 
Future generations will look back on our epoch as the time when the human race finally broke into a radically new frontier—space. In Pale Blue Dot, Sagan traces the spellbinding history of our launch into the cosmos and assesses the future that looms before us as we move out into our own solar system and on to distant galaxies beyond. The exploration and eventual settlement of other worlds is neither a fantasy nor luxury, insists Sagan, but rather a necessary condition for the survival of the human race.
 
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Contact

Published 1985.
 
A science-fiction novel.
 
ISBN-10: 0671004107
ISBN-13: 978-0671004101
 
Description:
 
In December, 1999, a multinational team journeys out to the stars, to the most awesome encounter in human history.
Who – or what – is out there?
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan explained the universe.
In Contact, he predicts its future – and our own.

Born on this day – Marie Dressler:

Marie Dressler

Actress

Comedian

Writer

Director

Producer

November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934

 

Credits:

Christopher Bean (1933); Dinner at Eight (1933); Tugboat Annie (1933); Prosperity (1932); Emma (1932); The Christmas Party (1931); Politics (1931); Reducing (1931); Min and Bill (1930); Let Us Be Gay (1930); Caught Short (1930); One Romantic Night (1930); The Girl Said No (1930); Anna Christie (1930); Chasing Rainbows (1930); The Vagabond Lover (1929); Dangerous Females (1929); The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929); The Divine Lady (1928); Bringing Up Father (1928); The Patsy (1928); Breakfast at Sunrise (1927); The Joy Girl (1927); The Callahans and the Murphys (1927); The Red Cross Nurse (1918); The Agonies of Agnes (1918); The Scrub Lady (1917); Fired (1917); Tillie Wakes Up (1917); Tillie's Tomato Surprise (1915); Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914).

Born on this day – Marfa d'Hervilly:

Marfa d'Hervilly

Actress

November 9, 1876 – November 18, 1963

Born on this day – Edna May Oliver:

Edna May Oliver

Actress

November 9, 1883 – November 9, 1942

Born on this day – Mabel Normand:

Mabel Normand

Actress

Writer

Director

Producer

Comedian

November 9, 1893 – February 23, 1930

Born on this day – Mae Marsh:

Mae Marsh

Actress

November 9, 1894 – February 13, 1968

Born on this day – Frank McDonald:

Frank McDonald

Director

Actor

November 9, 1899 – March 8, 1980

Born on this day – Gianni Puccini:

Gianni Puccini

Writer

Director

November 9, 1914 – December 3, 1968

Born on this day – Hedy Lamarr:

Hedy Lamarr

Actress

Inventor

November 9, 1914 – January 19, 2000

Born on this day – Dorothy Dandridge:

Dorothy Dandridge

Actress

Singer

November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965

Born on this day – Carl Sagan:

Carl Sagan

Astronomer

Planetary scientist

Cosmologist

Astrophysicist

Astrobiologist

Writer

November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996

Credits:

Books:

Contact (1985); Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966); Planets (1966); The Cosmic Connection (1973); Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence (1974); Other Worlds (1975); Dragons of Eden (1977); Broca's Brain (1979); Cosmos (1980); Murmurs of Earth (1983); The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War (1984); Comet (1985); Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1992); Pale Blue Dot (1994); The Demon-Haunted World (1995); Billions & Billions (1997); The Varieties of Scientific Experience (2006); The New Solar System (1981); The Eloquent Essay (2000).

Movies and television:

Cosmos: Possible Worlds (2020); Star Stuff: A Story of Carl Sagan (2015); Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014); FanGirl Academy: 101 (2014); Pale Blue Dot (2009); Contact (1997); The Earth Day Special (1990); Cosmos (1980); Voyager Golden Record (1977).

On this day in movie history - I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

I Died a Thousand Times

directed by Stuart Heisler,

written by W. R. Burnett,

was released in the United States on November 9, 1955.

Music by David Buttolph.

Cast:

Jack Palance, Shelley Winters, Lori Nelson, Lee Marvin, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, Lon Chaney Jr., Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Richard Davalos, Howard St. John, Nick Adams, Dennis Hopper, Ralph Moody, Olive Carey, Dub Taylor, Paul Brinegar, James Millican.

On this day in movie history - Heist (2001)

Heist

directed and written by David Mamet,

was released in the United States on November 9, 2001.

Music by Theodore Shapiro.

Cast:

Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay, Patti LuPone, Alan Bilzerian, Richard L. Friedman, Robert Lussier, Mark Camacho, Michelle Sweeney, Elyzabeth Walling, Mike Tsar, Jim Frangione, Christopher Kaldor, Danny Blanco Hall, Zodia McLean, Andreas Apergis, Tony Calabretta, Ted Whittall, Guy Sprung, Richard Zeman, Don Jordan, Pierre Leblanc, Richard Robitaille, Greg Goossen, Charles S. Doucet, Bill Rowat, Benz Antoine, Emile Cassini, Jennifer Morehouse, Marlyne Barrett, Emile Castonguay, Karen Cliché, Johnny Goar, Christian Maguire, Kent McQuaid, Henri Pardo, Mike Paterson.

 

On this day in movie history - No Country for Old Men (2007)

No Country for Old Men

directed and written by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen,

based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy,

was released in the United States on November 9, 2007.

Music by Carter Burwell.

Cast:

Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly Macdonald, Garret Dillahunt, Tess Harper, Barry Corbin, Stephen Root, Rodger Boyce, Beth Grant, Ana Reeder, Kit Gwin, Zach Hopkins, Chip Love, Eduardo Antonio Garcia, Gene Jones, Myk Watford, Boots Southerland, Kathy Lamkin, Johnnie Hector, Margaret Bowman, Thomas Kopache, Jason Douglas, Doris Hargrave, Rutherford Cravens, Matthew Posey, George Adelo, Mathew Greer, Trent Moore, Marc Miles, Luce Rains, Philip Bentham, Erik V. Reeves, Josh Meyer, Chris Warner, Brandon Smith, Roland Uribe, Richard Jackson, Josh Blaylock, Caleb Landry Jones, Dorsey Ray, Angel H. Alvarado Jr., David A. Gomez, Milton Hernandez, John Mancha, Scott Flick, Albert Fry Jr., Angelo Martinez, James Rishe, Elizabeth Slagsvol.