As well as being about the mechanics of deep time and space, chemicals and reactions to heat, this is a very human book. Gordon travels around the whole meteorite "industry", attending collectors' fairs and visiting various museums and universities and talking to curators, collectors and scientists.

She shares so many facts - did you know the Egyptians were the first to use iron to create objects, way before the Iron Age, using material from meteorites which an experimental scientist has been able to recreate? or that Earth is the only planet we know with plate tectonics, so almost nothing on our planet is as old as what falls onto it in the form of meteorites, but it was before it melted back into the core?

There are human stories such as those of the Wilcocks and earlier finders - they now do science visits to schools; previous witnesses to meteorite falls have been lost in the mists of history. We meet people who collect space dust meteoritic spherules (good word, right?) and people who collect meteorites for their aesthetic qualities. We learn how meteorites are tracked by a global network and what another global network is doing to record the risk of a large fall (the kind that did for the dinosaurs) and maybe prevent it.

There's even a social justice aspect, as Gordon spends time with Hasnaa Chennaoui Aoudjehane, a professor at Casablanca University, who is campaigning to keep at least some of Morocco's (many, many) meteorites within the country for its citizens to see and enjoy; she is also campaigning to have the official naming committee name its meteorites according to the towns they are found by (as everywhere else in the world) rather than just "North-West Africa [number]".

Gordon weaves herself and her small daughters into the book subtly and to just the right level, and I highly recommend this informative and very readable book.

My review on my blog (published 16 Feb 2025) : https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2025/02/16/book-review-helen-gordon-the-meteorites/

The Meteorites is a book full of interesting facts about meteorites and you can clearly see author's passion for these full of mystery pieces from the space. I loved the history bits and also traveling around the world to find out more about them.

"Generations of men - and now women - [watch] over the meteorites. I could see the appeal of it. To be part of a chain of care. The painstaking curation of the past."

The Meteorites is a well-researched, varied and accessible introduction to space rocks of many kinds. I quickly picked up on the lingo, of how meteors all have names, what a chondrite is, the various acronyms scattered throughout. I never felt lost in this book, though it's science-heavy: I feel like the author did an excellent job of giving you enough of the science to clarify things without mystifying.

I loved how broad this was, spanning many continents and everything from science to history to
economics and art.

Altogether an excellent nature/science book, and one that I would definitely recommend!

First off: Beautiful cover.

The main reason I'm rating this 3 stars is because I loved some parts and had to stop myself from skimming others. The parts I enjoyed (like how scientists work to prevent astroid strikes) were great but short, while other parts of the books (the unofficial market for meteorites) lagged. I also felt like the book was more focused about the history of meteorites than the meteorites themselves, if that makes sense.

It's definitely still worth a read, though. I learned some interesting facts that will stick with me.

Each chapter of this detailed, readable look at the science of meteorites, focuses on a separate issue. The historic finds in England. A massive fall in prehistoric Australia which wiped out local life and threw boulders about the area. Ditto in Europe. The mass sales from Morocco due to a combination of desert preservation and nomadic folks looking at the ground as they walk. A meteorite fan meet; and sales. A French fall witnessed in 1500s, the stone preserved in the church for generations. Micrometeorites, space dust. The finding of comet Shoemaker-Levy-9, which collided with Jupiter. And quite a bit about the off-earthly origins of such rocks, their composition and how science patiently unravels their mysteries. With up to date mentions of Bennu, Ryugu and Martian and Lunar meteorites, we are also reminded that Antarctica with its blanket of white is a great place to find black burnt stones.
I enjoyed the interviews with people who'd handled the rocks and their thoughts on the topic. The author intersperses them with mentions of her work researching during Covid lockdowns.
Notes start on P. 231. No photos in my e-ARC, which is a crying shame. But there's always the Web.

I read an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

Helen Gordon does a splendid job of leaving no stone unturned in her exploration of the meteorites, their orgins, arrivals, discovery, collection, trading, analysis, and general lore. I had no idea there was such a fanatical following for them. Scientific collection is one thing, but those guys with big pockets are buying aesthetically pleasing ones as art sculpture – at old master prices! Yet if you were as lucky as one household in Oxfordshire, you could make a name for yourself with one landing on your front drive.

Helen Gordon must have spent a huge amount of time and money on this research, since she has been to many meteorite landings sites (large and small) and far flung places, interviewing everyone froom desert dwellers to convention enthusiasts. Also scientists based in most continents, and with meteorites from every one (Antarctica is heaven since they are easy to see and generally in pristine condition). Some of the interviews have been zoom meetings, but others were definitely geological excursions into very interesting country.

I learnt things about meteorites that I had no clue about. I started to understand why they are so important to unravelling the mystery of life and how/where it formed. Also, why the search for water on Mars is so crucial to our understanding of our origins, and I have probably converted to the ‘life brought about by comets and meteorites’ theory.

I would like to give it five stars and stop there, but I'm concerned about some of the editing.

Such a gorgeous balance of informative and anecdotal, there’s an almost fictional feel to this that made it go down really smoothly. I don’t ever really read non-fiction like this so I loved that it was both an opportunity to learn about things I didn’t really have any background knowledge in and also to see how humans have interacted with them and been affected by them.

Thanks to Helen Gordon and NetGalley for this ARC!!

I was interested and engaged in the research and the various perspectives by different fields.
Gordon is certainly passionate about space rocks/meteorites, and this passion reaches the readers’ minds.
As for the personal touches and stories, I was slightly less engaged - perhaps further editing could blend those better into the rest of the text.

I picked this book to read as I was intrigued about the possibilities it might reveal….I mean, we all know about space rocks……don’t we? Well it seems there is a LOT more that we (most of us, at least) don’t know. To remedy this gap in our collective knowledge Ms Gordon takes us on a journey through time and space to explore the origins of meteorites and meteoroids and the way in which they have interacted with both our planet and with humans when they have witnessed or been affected by the fall of a space rock.

Some readers may feel that, at times, the passion and enthusiasm of the author may win out over the need to focus on key areas of interest, and it’s probably true to note that a rather more ruthless editing, especially in the latter half of the book, would have made for a slightly more accessible read. However, if there is to be a departure from the ideal, it is probably better to err on the side of providing additional background.

So, in summary, an excellent account of a fascinating subject. It will be an unusual reader whose interested isn’t piqued by the glimpses into the world beyond our little planet and the regular impacts, large and small, of these intriguing extra- terrestrial travellers. This reader, for example, was surprised to discover that the famous Arizona meteorite crater is far from the only sharply visible evidence of a large impact event and spent a few interesting hours examining information about similar impact craters worldwide, both well preserved and those that can only be traced through geological studies. And, of course, the book serves to remind us that an extinction event requires only the impact on our planet of a relatively modest sized space rock, travelling at the barely imaginable speed of these space visitors.

Full transparency: I picked up this book because of the pretty cover. I know very little about the extraterrestrial - in fact, I find the magnitude of space quite overwhelming - but I do like to be challenged by something new. And this paid off, because I found The Meteorites a thoroughly engaging and enjoyable read.

In Gordon's hands, meteorites are not only a scientific subject, but also historical, cultural and economic objects. We delve into the stories of specific falls and finds, and meet the dealers, hunters and geologists involved in the meteorite community across the world. The blend of these individual voices really brings the subject to life, making it accessible without losing the attention to detail of a committed researcher. Her enthusiasm for her subject is contagious; my Google search history is now full of images of space rocks.

An original and engaging read, The Meteorites gave me a whole new perspective on our planet and outer space.