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Transient and Strange: Notes on the Science of Life
An astonishing debut from the beloved NPR science correspondent: intimate essays about the intersection of science and everyday life.
Inspired by Walt Whitman’s invocation to the “transient and strange,” longtime NPR science reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce brings what best-selling essayist Tim Kreider calls her “bright inquiring mind and lively, drily funny voice” to the largest matters of life―birth and death, constancy and impermanence, love and aging. In personal essays both curious and wise, she describes the wildest workings of the natural world, from the echoing truth of a fetal heartbeat and the incredible leap of the humble flea to the eerie power of tornadoes and the otherworldly glint of micrometeorites. Beautifully blending explanatory science, original reporting, and personal experience, she captures the ache of ordinary comforting a frightened child, wrestling with potential genetic defects, confronting mortality through a parent’s illness. Transient and Strange delves into the places where science touches our lives most intimately, offering resonant insights into both the world around us and the worlds within us.
Inspired by Walt Whitman’s invocation to the “transient and strange,” longtime NPR science reporter Nell Greenfieldboyce brings what best-selling essayist Tim Kreider calls her “bright inquiring mind and lively, drily funny voice” to the largest matters of life―birth and death, constancy and impermanence, love and aging. In personal essays both curious and wise, she describes the wildest workings of the natural world, from the echoing truth of a fetal heartbeat and the incredible leap of the humble flea to the eerie power of tornadoes and the otherworldly glint of micrometeorites. Beautifully blending explanatory science, original reporting, and personal experience, she captures the ache of ordinary comforting a frightened child, wrestling with potential genetic defects, confronting mortality through a parent’s illness. Transient and Strange delves into the places where science touches our lives most intimately, offering resonant insights into both the world around us and the worlds within us.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published January 16, 2024
42 people are currently reading
3172 people want to read
About the author
Nell Greenfieldboyce
1 book23 followersNell Greenfieldboyce is a science correspondent for National Public Radio. Before joining NPR, she was a science reporter at magazines including U.S. News & World Report and New Scientist, where she received the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for Young Science Journalists. She lives in Washington, DC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
January 29, 2024
This slim, evocative book charmed and surprised me. I expected short, stimulating essays on scientific topics, and Nell Greenfieldboyce more than delivered: on subjects such as black holes, tornadoes, fleas and genetic counseling, to name a few. Along the way, she unearths rich and rewarding history -- such as the fact that U.S. weathermen were forbidden to mention tornados in their forecasts until 1938, for fear of inciting undue panic.
But these essays transcend the pop-science genre. They draw on literature, poetry and personal memory. The essay on tornadoes begins when her young son goes through a phase of obsessively fearing them, and then spirals out into fascinating stories about the earliest tornado researchers and the surreal survivor accounts of the deadly Worcester (Mass.) tornado of 1953.
As Greenfieldboyce probes the science and sociology of tornadoes, she is simultaneously exploring what her role should be as a parent trying to comfort an anxious child. Do facts and probabilities offer anything more than empty reassurance? Can we protect our children psychologically, if not physically? A seeming detour into a shattering phone call she experienced at age 13 becomes a key part of this disquisition into childhood fears and parental self-doubt.
Almost every essay unwinds in that way, revealing hidden threads of connection between the scientific and the personal. Her habit of doodling becomes an exploration of prehistoric cave markings -- and the murky and subjective line between compulsion and art. The essay on fleas has its genesis in Moby-Dick, and the ineffability of biological microcosms and celestial macrocosms. One of the most poignant essays ping-pongs between the emerging science of black holes (and the adolescent jockeying of the male physicists involved) and her own faltering and fraught emergence as an adolescent girl.
In this, and all the essays, the human quality of vulnerability is brought face to face with the implacability of physics and the raggedy circus that is biology. In these essays, Greenfieldboyce seems to be saying that this vulnerability should be -- if not exactly celebrated -- at least delineated and dissected with the same urgency and wonder.
But these essays transcend the pop-science genre. They draw on literature, poetry and personal memory. The essay on tornadoes begins when her young son goes through a phase of obsessively fearing them, and then spirals out into fascinating stories about the earliest tornado researchers and the surreal survivor accounts of the deadly Worcester (Mass.) tornado of 1953.
As Greenfieldboyce probes the science and sociology of tornadoes, she is simultaneously exploring what her role should be as a parent trying to comfort an anxious child. Do facts and probabilities offer anything more than empty reassurance? Can we protect our children psychologically, if not physically? A seeming detour into a shattering phone call she experienced at age 13 becomes a key part of this disquisition into childhood fears and parental self-doubt.
Almost every essay unwinds in that way, revealing hidden threads of connection between the scientific and the personal. Her habit of doodling becomes an exploration of prehistoric cave markings -- and the murky and subjective line between compulsion and art. The essay on fleas has its genesis in Moby-Dick, and the ineffability of biological microcosms and celestial macrocosms. One of the most poignant essays ping-pongs between the emerging science of black holes (and the adolescent jockeying of the male physicists involved) and her own faltering and fraught emergence as an adolescent girl.
In this, and all the essays, the human quality of vulnerability is brought face to face with the implacability of physics and the raggedy circus that is biology. In these essays, Greenfieldboyce seems to be saying that this vulnerability should be -- if not exactly celebrated -- at least delineated and dissected with the same urgency and wonder.
December 27, 2023
I am not really into science and was not familiar with Nell Greenfieldboyce, but I absolutely loved this collection of essays and I feel like she's my soulmate, as if our brains work in a similar way.
November 30, 2023
As the kid of two scientists, reading Greenfieldboyce's collection of musings felt like another night at the family dinner table: the warmth of the personal, but you're also going to learn something. Her journalistic voice seamlessly layers science-fact with the soft moments of the day-to-day, equal fascination and reverence granted whether she is discussing conversations with her kids or the biological make up of a flea.
September 24, 2024
Transient: the sudden formation and imminent destruction of a tornado. The life of spider as winter approaches. Strange: the inherent attraction to geographic patterns. Black holes. Nell Greenfieldboyce weaves some great essays focused on this phrase, coined by Walt Whitman in reference to a meteor. I found the author’s exploration of the various scientific subjects and how she weaves them into her everyday life brilliantly vulnerable. Most of the essays’ beginnings and middles were great, but only few stuck the landing with the end (which is completely fine — essays are an art in trying, after all). I loved her short essay about the beating of hearts in particular. But the third essay, “my eugenics project,” was by far the most interesting, with themes of motherhood, disability, science, eugenics/ethics, this one really hit hard. And the ending is great. I would get the book again just to read it again. Maybe you should check it out.
May 7, 2024
Nell Greenfieldboyce is a science journalist, but this book is largely not about her professional life, but instead a memoir-esque set of essays about various impactful moments in her life that all tangibly or more indirectly relate back to some aspect of science. I enjoyed her writing style, which mixes her personal experiences with fascinating scientific tangents -- the history of tornadoes in meteorology while her children are going through a weather-curious (and weather-phobic) stage, the history of eugenics, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, and ethical issues surrounding both as her husband receives a kidney transplant to treat his autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease and they contemplate childbearing, etc.
February 7, 2024
These are one of my favorite kind of books- she ties together scientific thinking, a historical perspective and her own experiences into a very interesting read along.
A few of the pieces that stick with me the most so far:
- the debate around eugenics/ IVF. This was super interesting as we went through similar trials in getting pregnant and watching on tenterhooks to see if our little chemicals will form into a blastocyst. But her experience is even more profound since her husband has a genetic disease with his kidneys and the babies have e 50/50 chance of inheriting. Kind of amazing how quickly scientific discoveries happen. Eugenics labs in the early 1900’s then get ripped off by Hitler. DNA discovered in the 1950’s. IVF in the early 2000s (I think?) and gene modification shortly after. Whoa.
- I love her parenting style - who lets their 3 year old discover butter by sitting in the fridge and biting into a stick of it? So many little vignettes of her letting kids discover things although I gotta say I would have tapped the brakes myself on the tornado self discovery at some point.
- the story about hanging out as a 12 yo with a 20 yo dude in the lobby of a Yosemite resort is disturbing.
- I felt like she was peering into my soul in the doodling section. I would never think to write about that let alone investigate others who doodle and actually turn them into art. I will be more reflective when I create my little cubes in the margins of all my notes now.
I’m sure more will come to me, I really liked how personal she got while tying her experiences to something form her scientific writing. Good stuff.
A few of the pieces that stick with me the most so far:
- the debate around eugenics/ IVF. This was super interesting as we went through similar trials in getting pregnant and watching on tenterhooks to see if our little chemicals will form into a blastocyst. But her experience is even more profound since her husband has a genetic disease with his kidneys and the babies have e 50/50 chance of inheriting. Kind of amazing how quickly scientific discoveries happen. Eugenics labs in the early 1900’s then get ripped off by Hitler. DNA discovered in the 1950’s. IVF in the early 2000s (I think?) and gene modification shortly after. Whoa.
- I love her parenting style - who lets their 3 year old discover butter by sitting in the fridge and biting into a stick of it? So many little vignettes of her letting kids discover things although I gotta say I would have tapped the brakes myself on the tornado self discovery at some point.
- the story about hanging out as a 12 yo with a 20 yo dude in the lobby of a Yosemite resort is disturbing.
- I felt like she was peering into my soul in the doodling section. I would never think to write about that let alone investigate others who doodle and actually turn them into art. I will be more reflective when I create my little cubes in the margins of all my notes now.
I’m sure more will come to me, I really liked how personal she got while tying her experiences to something form her scientific writing. Good stuff.
April 27, 2024
I was originally going to give this a 3 or 4, but last 1/3 of book blew me away. What an awesome way to discuss abortion and genetics and many other medical/science issues while still trying to navigate the moral implications for ourselves and humanity’s future! Should be required reading for any pre-med.
August 3, 2024
this was a 3 star read for me until I got to "A moment of silence" and especially "My eugenics project". that last essay was challenging & provocative
December 28, 2024
Oh I loved this. Greenfieldboyce so astutely cross references her personal experiences (with men in childhood! with her fertility struggles and her husband’s polycystic kidney disease! with fleas!) and the science that keeps the world turning. My favorite genre is “memoir that’s also well documented observations of the natural world” so I expected to love this and was not disappointed!
November 23, 2024
good combination of science and vulnerability. great writing style
February 26, 2024
I applied to undergrad as a Journalism major & never took a single Journalism class. As soon as I realized what kind of writing it required (in a word: spare), I was out. 🙈 I’m telling this story because Greenfieldboyce, the author of Transient & Strange, is an American radio journalist, the science correspondent for NPR. I’m sure that she delighted in the freedom to write as much (or as little) as she wanted in this memoir-essay collection.
Unfortunately, I found her short-form essays to be much more powerful (“Spider at the window”, “A Moment of silence”) — not necessarily in content but they were just so impressively well-crafted! Fortunately, I was also thoroughly delighted by &/or invested in many of the longer ones (“What else is there?”, “A life so precious as a flea’s”, “A very charming young black hole”). Most fortunately of all, I found the book as a whole to be compelling and supremely readable.
*A note about the cover: it’s my favorite cover design in years and years. The meteoroids depicted are shiny, raised, and metallic. It suddenly hit me, about 3/4 through the collection & partway-through a pet, that the featured colors were those I reliably listed as childhood favorites. Whenever anyone asked, I’d exclaim, “Black, silver, and HOT BLUE!” What a (fitting) blast from the past! ☄️💫
Unfortunately, I found her short-form essays to be much more powerful (“Spider at the window”, “A Moment of silence”) — not necessarily in content but they were just so impressively well-crafted! Fortunately, I was also thoroughly delighted by &/or invested in many of the longer ones (“What else is there?”, “A life so precious as a flea’s”, “A very charming young black hole”). Most fortunately of all, I found the book as a whole to be compelling and supremely readable.
*A note about the cover: it’s my favorite cover design in years and years. The meteoroids depicted are shiny, raised, and metallic. It suddenly hit me, about 3/4 through the collection & partway-through a pet, that the featured colors were those I reliably listed as childhood favorites. Whenever anyone asked, I’d exclaim, “Black, silver, and HOT BLUE!” What a (fitting) blast from the past! ☄️💫
February 15, 2024
Nell Greenfieldboyce, a longtime science journalist, here collects several essays, each of which is part science story and part memoir. That is, she weaves together her personal experience — as a wife and mother — with factual details about various topics of interest. These include tornadoes, the heart, spiders (one in particular), fleas, doodling, eugenics, etc. I found the first essay on tornadoes the most interesting. Also liked the one about the family toaster. I basically liked the book, but don't think I'll remember much of it. I'd read the tornadoes chapter again, though.
December 22, 2023
Transient and Strange: Notes on the Science of Life by Nell Greenfieldboyce is a collection of essays which explore memory, trauma, parenthood and family, in an enlightening and moving way.
With each essay, Greenfieldboyce centers something personal and anecdotal, but plumbs the depths of these experiences with open-minded questioning, scientific and journalistic research, and reflection. From exploring her approach to parenting through her childrens’ fear of tornadoes, to her relationships with men as a younger woman through the metaphor of Black Holes, Greenfieldboyce invites us into her personal sphere while seeming to open up the world for us.
This approach is thoroughly enjoyable, interesting and often extremely touching. It is a collection I’d return to as there is something grounding and comforting in how Greenfieldboyce reconciles the vastness of science and the universe with the everyday - with the family toaster, or the moment she has to record ambient noise after conducting an interview.
In short, where there is potential for a collection like this to be overwhelming (in regards to the scientific element) or disconnected (in how specific the essays are to author), Greenfieldboyce’s approach and writing style ensure this doesn’t happen. Instead, it feels like an old friend sharing experience and knowledge in the hopes you’ll nod and day ‘Yes, I feel that too.’
With each essay, Greenfieldboyce centers something personal and anecdotal, but plumbs the depths of these experiences with open-minded questioning, scientific and journalistic research, and reflection. From exploring her approach to parenting through her childrens’ fear of tornadoes, to her relationships with men as a younger woman through the metaphor of Black Holes, Greenfieldboyce invites us into her personal sphere while seeming to open up the world for us.
This approach is thoroughly enjoyable, interesting and often extremely touching. It is a collection I’d return to as there is something grounding and comforting in how Greenfieldboyce reconciles the vastness of science and the universe with the everyday - with the family toaster, or the moment she has to record ambient noise after conducting an interview.
In short, where there is potential for a collection like this to be overwhelming (in regards to the scientific element) or disconnected (in how specific the essays are to author), Greenfieldboyce’s approach and writing style ensure this doesn’t happen. Instead, it feels like an old friend sharing experience and knowledge in the hopes you’ll nod and day ‘Yes, I feel that too.’
February 21, 2024
4.5 stars. This book of essays was thought-provoking and terrific. I'm not unbiased--the author is a long-time friend of mine, and I know her family well. (I used to marvel at her doodles, which form the basis of one of the essays. And I can say the psychiatrists she quotes are wrong when they say no one copies doodles--I've tried it with her style!) Some of the essays are quirky and fascinating (only Nell could connect Moby Dick to a flea circus) and some are poignant. I did not expect an essay called "A very charming young black hole" to bring me to tears.
The only weakness I saw is one I feel is common to books of essays: an unevenness among them. For instance, I found the longest essay, about genetic testing and parenthood, a bit heavy handed--but that may be more a matter of me being the wrong reader, since I've written about that topic myself more than once.
The only weakness I saw is one I feel is common to books of essays: an unevenness among them. For instance, I found the longest essay, about genetic testing and parenthood, a bit heavy handed--but that may be more a matter of me being the wrong reader, since I've written about that topic myself more than once.
March 7, 2024
This book is a series of essays that range from the sublime to the somewhat ridiculous.
The author covers such things as fleas, black holes, genetic counseling, to a spider that set up
shop outside her window. That said the quality varies somewhat. I found the piece on black holes
off the mark and making little sense, while her final story about her husband's kidney disease and the implications of that for their children to be thoughtful and deep.
That said, I would recommend this book because you can always skip over the essays that don't work and will probably find another one that does.
It's a brief book.
The author covers such things as fleas, black holes, genetic counseling, to a spider that set up
shop outside her window. That said the quality varies somewhat. I found the piece on black holes
off the mark and making little sense, while her final story about her husband's kidney disease and the implications of that for their children to be thoughtful and deep.
That said, I would recommend this book because you can always skip over the essays that don't work and will probably find another one that does.
It's a brief book.
May 6, 2024
Some of these essays were slight and others were absolutely brilliant. I really loved the essay about her and her husband's efforts to get pregnant as well as deal with his kidney disease. There were a couple of extra essays in the audio version and Santa was a really good one. I just loved the idea that kids approach big things (like Santa) not with a "wow" but with a sense of a scientist trying to figure things out. SO good! It does have a sort of NPR/essay sound to it all but that's an observation and not a complaint.
June 21, 2024
I thought this would have more science in it, but it's mostly personal essays about the author's family, with a little science thrown in for flavor. Her writing style is easy to follow along with and keeps your interest. My favorites were the two first essays, about tornadoes and meteors.
(As an aside, Antoine de Saint-Exupery has a nice description in Wind, Sand, and Stars of finding meteorites on an African mesa where he is the first human to ever walk. Pp. 68-69 in the edition I have https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... )
(As an aside, Antoine de Saint-Exupery has a nice description in Wind, Sand, and Stars of finding meteorites on an African mesa where he is the first human to ever walk. Pp. 68-69 in the edition I have https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... )
January 17, 2025
I would recommend the book to those looking for memoirs with a personal focus, particularly one related to parenthood and family relationships. Conversely, I think Greenfieldboyce's entertaining, easy-to-parse explanations and the way she connects those explanations to the tender moments of her life mean this could be a hit even with readers usually uninterested in science-based books.
-Katharine Blatchford
Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...
-Katharine Blatchford
Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...
November 19, 2024
A random hodge-podge of personal essays loosely centered around scientific concepts/phenomena.
I had gone into this expecting more science and it ended up being far more memoir, which wasn’t as engaging for me because I am not familiar with the writer and don’t feel particularly intrigued by her personal life. Some essays were stronger than others, though I appreciate the curious lens through which she views the world.
I had gone into this expecting more science and it ended up being far more memoir, which wasn’t as engaging for me because I am not familiar with the writer and don’t feel particularly intrigued by her personal life. Some essays were stronger than others, though I appreciate the curious lens through which she views the world.
May 30, 2025
I listened to this while traveling from class to class on campus and found myself approaching the trees, flowers, and people around me with more childlike wonder. I liked the format and enjoyed the author’s refined writing style. I liked the author’s anecdotes about parenting and I wish she would have focused more on those stories and less on her childhood. A few stories were weird and disturbing so they threw me out of the feeling of curiosity that the book tried to cultivate.
April 2, 2024
I really loved this book. Kind of felt like a mix of two of my favorite authors (Bill Bryson and Mary Roach)
Scientific information on random topics weaved together with personal experiences and feelings and it had me engaged for the whole thing. Each chapter on a different topic (fleas/spider were my fave)-Don’t worry it’s not all insects/critters. I even felt that early internet pubescent cringe again.
More like this from Nell please!
Scientific information on random topics weaved together with personal experiences and feelings and it had me engaged for the whole thing. Each chapter on a different topic (fleas/spider were my fave)-Don’t worry it’s not all insects/critters. I even felt that early internet pubescent cringe again.
More like this from Nell please!
April 13, 2024
Each essay left a strong impression on me, and I gave a voice to those anxieties of growing up/growing old. The scientific anecdotes strung throughout were the ‘candy’ and generally improved the stories. But I couldn’t make much sense of the essay on fleas, honestly. I’d return to it if I were that type of reader.
July 23, 2024
This is my least favorite science writing I’ve encountered. Not only are the topics she address not particularly interesting - her insights into her own life serve only to make me dislike her. She seems to lack self-awareness, exude selfishness, and be quite myopic. One would think a writer who devotes their career to research would be more objective and thorough.
August 10, 2024
I chose this book for a short read for a book challenge, and I started this book thinking, ooh yay, tornadoes and natural disasters. Although a whole book on that would be interesting to me, this was better. Nell did a great job at narrating her own book and actual experiences in her life. The genetic breakthroughs in her life to have a child was so exciting to see. Bonus stories at the end was just as great.
November 18, 2024
Though I've been retired for several years now, I still find myself dreaming up new topics for writing courses. My current one is "The Art of Science Writing". This excellent collection would be a strong candidate for the syllabus. The concluding essay, "My Eugenics Project," alone would clinch it.
May 4, 2025
I really enjoyed how the author, who has experienced some interesting, weird, and creepy things, found a way to relate cool science facts. I really enjoyed her chapter on tornadoes, fleas, and eugenics. That last chapter is not the eugenics you usually think about, but it did raise some very interesting questions about the future of genome editing.
February 10, 2024
An ok read, well written, each essay written about a science or biological topic heavily entwined with a personal or family subject; or maybe a personal or family topic heavily entwined with a scientific or biological subject. Hard to say which leads and which follows.
February 20, 2024
Well-crafted essays about an interesting series of subjects. It felt like Greenfieldboyce was threading the eye of a needle with her balance between science communication, thematic connection and family history, and maybe the thread was licked a few too many times.
May 1, 2024
This science writer for NPR has clearly mastered the art of combining real life with scientific observations. A wonderful collection of essays that are reminiscent of Hope Jahren and thoroughly enjoyable!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews