Black Hole Survival Guide

By: Janna Levin

Narrated by: Janna Levin

From the acclaimed author of Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space - an authoritative and accessible guide to the most alluring and challenging phenomena of contemporary science.

Through her writing, astrophysicist Janna Levin has focused on making the science she studies not just comprehensible but also, and perhaps more important, intriguing to the nonscientist. In this book, she helps us to understand and find delight in the black hole - perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists.

Levin takes us on an evocative exploration of black holes, provoking us to imagine the visceral experience of a black hole encounter. She reveals the influence of black holes as they populate the universe, sculpt galaxies, and even infuse the whole expanse of reality that we inhabit. Lively, engaging, and utterly unique, Black Hole Survival Guide is not just informative - it is, as well, a wonderful listen from first to last.

©2020 Janna Levin (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"In prose that revels in the immensity and dispassion of the barely known universe — and bolstered by Lia Halloran’s illustrations of strange celestial shapes and astronauts floating in inky voids — Levin makes space sound like a somewhat reasonable place." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A short, lively account of one of the oddest and most intriguing topics in astrophysics." —Kirkus Reviews

“Warm, smart prose inviting readers to share her fascination with these cosmic phenomena. Enhanced by wonderful artwork, Levin’s book glides through the universe, from relativity and quantum mechanics to the solar system, the Milky Way, and the Andromeda galaxy. Stirring imagination and curiosity about the mysteries of black holes, Levin makes a case that they are a fodder for fantasy.” —The National Book Review

Great Book

This is one of the best books I have ever listened too, or read. If you are a nerd like me, you will love it also.

Nerdtastic!!!

So amazing, love how she took applied astrophysics and made it more personable. I didn’t want the book to end! More more!

Seems longer than it is

I like this one and learned more about black holes. They are of special interest to me. Even though it is so short, I listened over about 3-4 days, perhaps that's why it seemed longer. It was good and narration by the author was great. I listened at 0.9x speed to have more time to understand the material. (I do this with many books.)

exactly what I expected

I can listen to this woman talk about black holes for hours and hours... excellent introduction to these astrophysical phenomena.

Astounding and Hypnotizing

I have never heard of the end of our solar system described in such an elegant, and beautiful way. Spoil alert, no one survives the black hole .

I don't know why I can only write 50 characters

Nowadays, I get to know newly discovered physical phenomena by reading books as well as reading academic papers. When it comes to the frontier of modern-day scientific exploration, I'm not able to do experiments just by myself, you see, and I got to get to know newly discovered physical phenomena by some other means. So, this book is just something that those of us who would like to get to know about black holes will need. I'm also glad that this book distinguishes which parts are established objective truths and which parts are still matters of frontiers of scientific exploration and therefore are just opinions.

Interesting read

That being said, I’ve listened to a lot of similar books and this one is on point with the rest. She does repeat a lot in my opinion, and the read isn’t as fluid , but nonetheless a good short listen.

Fabulous riveting story

Janna Levin tells this captivating mind bending story of black holes as a page turner for non scientists. Actually, her telling makes you want to rush out to enroll in her physics class. Loved this book!

Short, informational, stimulating exposition

I have been intrigued by the insights from Janna on star talk and i looked for more in this book. The book did provide fodder for thought. Janna’s prose is poetic at times , she is also eloquent and made the subject engrossing.

The subject gets more and more esoteric towards the end and one can perceive the increased labor in presenting accessible analogies. I must say, those analogies didn’t work for me. They are equally befuddling and may be the description of physics would have sufficed. All in all, i am introduced to nuances that i did not come across astronomy textbook descriptions of black holes and that is ofcourse the primary goal of the pop science books. To just introduce the topics as a minimum and enhance the exposure, broaden the horizons.

I am glad the book was kept short. May be there is a limit to how much one can dumb down the non intuitive comprehension of a difficult subject at hand to a layperson. Impressed and not impressed both simultaneously. Admittedly i have to listen to this again to revisit some of the more difficult concepts.

The whole spacetime curvature explanations did not seem on spot. It was explained as if they are self explanatory. Granted, its hard to comprehend something that is non intuitive due to 4 dimensional nature of it, however, the trajectories appear as they do just because space time curves, sounds like force fitting a revelation to common day experience. It may be better to work on riemann geometry than simplifying it to meet everyday experience.

There are other conceptual difficulties like black hole is not space, or just a point in time..or was it not both depending on your motion inside blackhole?.., holographic principle ...requires more work at math i guess. Having said that, the content is still accessible and fun. Janna’s narration too is excellent. I look forward to her future works.

Listen at least once a wk to this...

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