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

Although most of our time as graduate students is taken up with problem sets, teaching, and research, it's nice to try to pursue our love of astronomy outside of school as well.  I love reading, and about a year ago I read a fantastic book called How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown.  Dr. Brown is an astronomer whose discoveries of other objects in the Kuiper Belt played a huge role in demoting Pluto to the status of Dwarf Planet.

From the point of view of an astronomer, reading this book was very interesting.  I of course knew the (very) basic reasons for Pluto's current status, but I didn't know how in depth the full story was, or how political the entire process became.  Dr. Brown does a great job of stepping you through the storyline from the very beginning of his interest in searching for other planets in our solar system.  But you don't need to be an astronomer or even a scientist to appreciate this book -- my mom (a lawyer with no scientific background) recommended it to me in the first place, and she couldn't put it down.  Dr. Brown includes bits of his personal life (including some struggles in balancing professional and home life) which really make the story compelling for the reader. His explanations are basic enough for non-scientists, but include enough science to keep us astronomers happy. And, as you can tell from the title, he has a great sense of humor!

Another reason I loved the book was the honesty with which Dr. Brown discusses his research process. Many of us have heard of "imposter syndrome" -- the feeling that we aren't good enough to be where we are and doing what we're doing, and that some day someone will figure that out.  I deal with this quite often in classes and in my research, and it's easy to feel alone and, quite frankly, stupid.  (Although being in a fantastic graduate department with supportive faculty and fellow grad students has helped tremendously!)  Dr. Brown, who is without a doubt a very impressive researcher and professor at Cal Tech, discusses feeling completely lost in his research at times, and not at all knowing what to do.  I was shocked to read this -- how could someone who has truly "made it" in his career feel this way?  But the truth is most of us do at some point, and it was encouraging to realize that these feelings are prevalent nearly everywhere, not just in my own head.

This book has been around for a few years so I'm sure many of you have read it already, but if you haven't, definitely pick it up!

What are your favorite astronomy-related reads?