As part of Lit Society’s Book Review Program, members are reading and reviewing books by independent writers we think deserve more attention. This review reflects one reader’s honest experience and aims to spotlight exciting new voices.
Big Take? Part science lecture, part philosophy seminar, part nerdy hangout session, this book wanders through everything we think we know about aliens and gently upends most of it. It's for readers who love going down rabbit holes and want their sci-fi curiosity taken seriously.
- Would You Recommend It? Yes
- Book Club Worthy? Yes
- Would You Read This Author Again? Yes
- Did It Change How You See Something? Yes
- Is It More Plot or Ideas? Ideas
- Pace: Steady
- Emotional Impact: Light
- Best For: Fans of late-night “what if” conversations — the kind of book that fuels a good tangent-filled chat
- Skimmable or Demands Attention? Skimmable
- Would You Reread It? No
We're clearly having a moment with aliens right now. NASA sent astronauts around the Moon and back this spring with Artemis II, its first crewed lunar mission since Apollo. Obama's offhand comment that aliens are real went viral and he ended up walking it back. Trump ordered federal agencies to release government files on UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Even Hollywood got in on it, with Project Hail Mary and Disclosure Day both hitting theaters earlier this year. So Neil deGrasse Tyson's Take Me To Your Leader: Perspectives on Your First Alien Encounter, published in May, lands at a good time. But what makes it fun isn't just the timing. It's that Tyson has clearly been mulling over these questions for decades, and you can feel that depth on every page.
Reading this book feels like sitting down with the most-well read, well-informed friend you have and letting them ramble about aliens for a few hundred pages, in the best way. Tyson pulls from history, literature, pop culture, and film to trace how we've imagined extraterrestrial life over the decades, then holds those imaginings up against actual physics. What might aliens look like? How might they behave? How would they even survive the trip here across such enormous distances? He also offers etiquette tips for how we might conduct ourselves during a first encounter, which made me laugh out loud and also made me want to keep a copy of this book somewhere handy, just in case.
The book wanders, and I mean that warmly. Tyson is having a blast, and his humor and curiosity spill onto every page. He blends science, history, philosophy, and pop culture so freely that the pace loosens in places, especially if you're used to reading things front to back in one sitting. I found this book was best enjoyed a chapter or two at a time, set down, and picked back up later. It rewards a slow, curious reader more than a fast one.
What stuck with me most is Tyson's central argument that the universe probably holds far more possibilities for alien life, and far stranger ones, than pop culture has ever prepared us for. At one point he jokes that since we've never actually verified beauty standards on other planets, the winners of the Miss Universe pageant "should have always been named 'Miss Earth.'" It's a small joke, but it captures the whole spirit of the book: playful on the surface, genuinely rigorous underneath. If you've ever wondered why UFO sightings persist, or joked with a friend about whether aliens might already be here, Tyson takes that curiosity seriously without ever taking himself too seriously.
By the end, I came away thinking less about whether aliens are real and more about how wrong our assumptions probably are if they ever do show up. Tyson isn't trying to convince you of anything. He's trying to widen what you think is possible, with real scientific grounding behind the fun. If you're already a little obsessed with aliens, or just want a smart, funny book to keep at your bedside for a slow weekend, this one is a treat. I finished it still thinking about it days later.
Favorite Lines?
“What about aliens with marginal sensibilities? Or simply, dumbass aliens?" “Octopus morphology continues to haunt us, myself included.”
“Here are some especially boneheaded predictions made by people who should have known better."
Recommended Media?
1. Contact (1997) — 🎬 Film directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Jodie Foste
2. “Starman” — David Bowie (1972) — 🎵 Song
3. Childhood’s End — Arthur C. Clarke (1953) — 📖 Science-fiction novel
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