A Scientific American Book of the Year 2025 'The Meteorites conjures a small epiphany about our own place in the universe' The Sunday Times 'Dazzling' Financial Times From your window you can see the stars and distant planets: light years away, it's easy to think that our existences and theirs will never intersect. Yet meteorites - mysterious, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights. Helen Gordon reveals the fascinating stories of fallen meteorites and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to farmers. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across rooftops and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about the fragility of life on Earth.

I've never had such an emotional reaction to reading about rocks, but the prose is beautiful, and the passion of the authors pours off every page * Scientific America, Books of the Year *
Performs a similar trick to Samantha Harvey's recent Booker-winning novel Orbital... The Meteorites conjures a small epiphany about our own place in the universe * The Sunday Times *
An engrossing blend of the scientific and the human ... highly readable * Observer *
Gordon's deep dive into these extraterrestrial visitations and the people who orbit them is lively and endlessly fascinating * i Paper *
The passion of the author pours off every page * Scientific American *
Dazzling....Gordon's thinking about the subject develops its own kind of new fusion skin, putting forward a vision in which there is no barrier between our planet and our universe -- Natalie Whittle * Financial Times *
A beautifully written and very human history of objects far older than human comprehension... By turns informative, funny and touching, this is a book not just about meteorites, but about art, history and humanity itself * BBC Sky at Night *
Brimming with personal stories of witnessed meteorite impacts and expeditions to find the fallen revered. Gordon's curiosity about how meteorite enthusiasts gained their fascination shines through... Outer space enthusiasts will not be disappointed * Nature *
[An] engaging account ... Meteorites offer clues on the formation of the solar system and the start of everything * Country Life *
Gripping, deft and riveting. Gordon moves with total mastery from the human to the cosmic and back again -- Noreen Masud, author * A Flat Place *
A brilliantly engaging tour of meteorites, a book that reminds us that while they might come from outer space they are part and parcel of our planet -- Travis Elborough, author * Atlas of Unexpected Places *
Helen Gordon's ruminations on finds and falls, scientists and amateurs, craters and even the superannuated satellites that, increasingly, descend from the sky, show how meteorites help us to understand our place in the universe. But the real strength of her book is the compelling case that meteorites illuminate something else entirely, the human spirit * TLS *
Engaging * Country Life *
Praise for Notes from Deep Time: Astounding ... To call this a "history" does not do justice to Helen Gordon's ambition ... Sheer intellectual and poetical entertainment -- Simon Ings * Daily Telegraph *
Profoundly considered and far-reaching ... Notes from Deep Time reaches into a place that, in a post-religious era, offers a glimpse of something close to eternity * FT *
A marvel-rich masterclass of narrative non-fiction, one of those books that teaches its reader to see the world completely differently -- Max Porter
Awe-inspiring * Mail on Sunday *

Helen Gordon is a writer and natural historian. Her books include Being a Writer and the acclaimed Notes from Deep Time, as well as a novel, Landfall. She has written for 1843 magazine, the Guardian and Wired, edited for Granta, and teaches Creative Writing at the University of Hertfordshire.