For Small Creatures Such as We

learn, create better technology, and produce more brilliant people, we might discover that which we currently think happened is wrong. But somehow, something started us off a very long time ago.

 

In the other direction there will, theoretically, be an infinite amount of time after we're dead. Not infinite for our planet or our species, but maybe for the universe. Maybe not. We don't know much about what that will entail except that the star we orbit will eventually burn out. Between those two enormous mysteries, if we're lucky, we get eighty or one hundred years. The blink of an eye, really, in the grand scheme of things. And yet here we are. Right now.

 

It's easy to forget how amazing this is. Days and weeks go by and the regularity of existing eclipses the miraculousness of it. But there are certain moments when we manage to be viscerally aware of being alive. Sometimes those are very scary moments, like narrowly avoiding a car accident. Sometimes they are beautiful, like holding your newborn in your arms. And then there are the quiet moments in between, when all the joy and sorrow seem profound only to you.

 

On one particular day a few winters ago I felt this intensely. I had just found out that I was pregnant, full of wonder and nausea. Everything was about to change forever. It was also the twentieth anniversary of my father's death. Twenty years feels like a shockingly long time. It's significantly longer than the time I had with him. I miss him very much. Sometimes, still now, so much that it feels intolerable.

 

Feeling the entrance of one new being and the loss of another brought on a series of paradoxical emotions, and a powerful sense of my place in the universe. I remember walking around the city, stunned that everyone I saw, the owner of every wise and wizened face, was once a baby. This seemed revelatory, despite its obviousness. I couldn't help reflecting on how any of us got here in the first place. Human beings

serves as an uplifting, life-honoring celebration of human existence.
Publishers Weekly

Sagan expertly weaves science and nature into the fabric of humanness and ritual in this book. . . . Whether you are looking for a guide to finding new traditions, or you are simply looking to be re-inspired by the world around you, this book is sure to be a good fit.  
Space.com

She s Carl Sagan s daughter, and it shows. . . . Her style seems to inherit something from that grand master of scientific prose poetry. While never for a moment departing from secular physicalism, she makes a lyrical case for ritual, marking out the rhythms of life from birth to death. A charming book, ringing with the joy of existence.  
Richard Dawkins, author of An Appetite for Wonder and The Greatest Show on Earth

Offers ethereal wisdom and worldly guidance . . . Sagan's debut, a lushly written amalgam of memoir and manual, traces her life as the daughter of Carl and writer/producer Ann Druyan and how she came to appreciate the wonder in the everyday. . . Profound, elegantly written ruminations on the exquisite splendors of life enjoyed through a secular lens.
Kirkus Reviews

Blends science and spirituality . . . drawing from a variety of anthropological, historical, and religious works, Sagan s chapters are devoted to the essential characteristics of being human: rituals and celebrations relating to birth and death, people and relationships. . . A potentially transformative read for anyone looking to embrace [Sagan s] invocation to lead a more connected life.
Library Journal

"Sasha Sagan has written a lovely book about the sense of wonder and the beauty of rituals--even for the non-religious. It's an answer to my secular prayers." 
A. J. Jacobs, author of Thanks A Thousand

A lovely, inspiring memoir exploring the intersection of science, wonder, and spirituality in a secular home. . . . Like her parents, Sasha has the passion, brilliance, and ability to spark curiosity, skepticism, and hope, through the written word. Open mind required. No faith necessary.  
Boing Boing

Sagan has written a book for turbulent times. It s for believers, those of us who are nonbelievers, and for those in-between. . . A life without connections for us humans would ring rather hollow. Sagan s book gives both import to, and lessons for, connecting. Because of her excellent global examples, the world feels a bit smaller, a better place to be.
Skeptical Inquirer

[A] smart, meaningful, and charming book. For those of us who have thought deeply (or want to think deeply) about what it means to make meaning in the world unbound by religious tradition, Sagan's wisdom is much needed. This book makes space for a new category of morality.
Books Are Magic

Reading Sasha s book is a reminder to appreciate magnificence of our lives and simply the fact that we exist.  
Kveller

This brief, beautiful book is the vulnerable story of Sagan's experience as a daughter and granddaughter, a wife and mother; but it also offers a tangible and practical way for people to tell our own family and community stories more meaningfully. . . .Sasha represents one of the best possible scenarios for the future of humanism: a wise and passionate young woman thinking with love and creativity about how we can design secular lives of beauty and justice, together.
Greg Epstein, author of Good Without God

"Sagan has written the book I've always needed to make sense of this world. She makes that spiritual muscle so deeply hidden in my guts feel perfectly at home in the universe. She is that wise friend, in-cahoots with the muse of perspective, that changes your life as she describes the world she sees. I want everyone to read this book. But first, stare at the starry night sky. And when your chest expands with wonder and humility, sit down and read." 
Jedidiah Jenkins, author of To Shake the Sleeping Self

Birth, anniversaries, fasting, atonement: She approaches these subjects with wonderment and a generous window into her extraordinary family history . . . For Small Creatures Such As We is a marvel. It dazzles and comforts while making us consider our own place in the vast universe.  
BookPage

A warm, elegant hymn to finding the spiritual in the secular and the romance in everyday ritual. Sasha Sagan writes beautifully on the power of deep-rooted historical traditions, and the pleasure of inventing our own.
Greg Jenner, author of A Million Years in a Day

Explains and celebrates the human experience as we see it on Earth.
Bleu

Sagan encourages us, as grown-up children of this world, to create for ourselves and each other previously unimagined life-honoring and life-enhancing celebrations and rites of passage more attuned to our own deepest truths and heart's desires. And on this path she introduces us to and vividly portrays five generations of her extraordinary family. . . . A lucent, lovingly written, and joyous book."
Jonathan Cott, author of There s A Mystery There