Our Moon is a deep dive into the moon.  Starting from how the moon was formed, the science of the effects of the moon on the Earth and how life and the moon interact and influence one another, Our Moon delves into the relationship between life and the moon. I enjoyed reading about the moon's origins and how scientists have determined that the moon was formed from the collision of two other planetary bodies and the unique rocks and minerals found there that tell of its history. Most interesting to me was the way humans have regarded the moon through history to the present. The moon helped to shape life on Earth and was our timekeeper, calendar and constant in the sky.  I was intrigued by the long worship of the moon goddess, Sin and the women on Earth who worshipped her and her phases.  I also enjoyed the archaeological data that supports multiple ancient cultures showing knowledge of the moon's cycles and utilizing that information for timekeeping and acting as a calendar.  Most of all, Our Moon examined the moon's influence upon human culture and advancement. 
This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

I requested Our Moon by Rebecca Boyle as background reading for a review we had planned on BookBrowse. Sadly, I have not yet had a chance to read it, but our reviewer rated it 5-stars and we featured it across BookBrowse as one of our four top picks of the week. See link to review.

I found this book to be beautifully written and well balanced between science and philosophy. It is clear the author attempted for the book to contain both emotions and opinions about the moon as well as theories of its origin.

I did struggle with the balance at times but overall I thought it was 4 star worthy! Very impressed.

Received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t know why I thought this book would be metaphysical (the cover maybe?) but it was actually very heavy on history and science. Interesting, but a lot to digest!

Thank you to the publisher - I received a complimentary eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about the moon and its influence, impact, and lure for us earthlings. From way before humans inhabited the earth to ancient times, currently, and in the future, the moon is intrinsically linked to earth, influencing plant, animal and human lives, helping us mark time, and so much more. The author has done a great job leveraging history, mythology, facts, connections and science to present a comprehensive and fascinating in-depth look at the moon and its continued allure on humankind. The book is remarkably easy flowing, despite the nature of the topic - it’s a happy blend of providing facts and insights and features individuals who have contributed to unravelling the mysteries of the moon over hundreds of years. The writing is extremely engaging and the pacing just right to absorb and comprehend this fascinating object in the sky we call moon. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

What a fascinating book, I admit that I didn’t read it cover to cover but it is so interesting maybe I should do just that!
Our Moon is full of information and unusual facts and the thing I liked most was how well written it is and easy to read. I will be recommending this one!

Our Moon, by Rebecca Boyle, is an engrossing tour of our relationship with our closest celestial neighbor, full of the usual (and less familiar) facts, while delving into science, history, and culture as Boyle, as she says, explains “How the moon was made, how the Moon made us, and how we made the Moon in our image.”

Boyle starts off not on the Moon but on Earth three-quarters of a century ago with a 39-year-old marine waiting to begin the Allies’ attack on Tarawa Atoll, part of the Pacific campaign against Japan. Unfortunately, the tide the Allies had counted on for their landing didn’t come in, leaving the marines to “wade across six hundred yards of water … facing relentless fire from Japanese forces.” The reason things went so disastrously, so fatally wrong was the influence of the Moon. This scene is a starkly effective way of showing readers how that influence is not abstract but has real life and death consequences.

What follows is an engaging and informative trip through time and space. On the planetary physics side, besides the tidal impact, we get theories as to how the Moon formed (most centered on a collision with another planet named “Theia”), explanations of how the Moon affects Earth’s tilt (“Without the Moon, gravitational influence from Jupiter would push Earth around like a playground bully. Earth’s axis would tilt somewhere between zero degrees … and a vertiginous eighty-five degrees … such a wild wobble would make it hard for any life to survive for very long”), and how the Moon is “spiraling aways from Earth at a rate of about … 1.5 inches a year.”

On Earth we learn of the Moon’s influence on evolution, continent formation, body clocks, reproduction. And we travel through our changing mythic and intellectual relationship with the moon. In the earliest days, Boyle tells us, “The Moon stated out as a fertility symbols, a time counter, and a form of notation. It soon progressed to a new role as a time reckoner, enabling people to orient themselves in time, imagining the future as well as recalling the past … the Moon enabled the beginning of history.” From there humans began precisely tracking the Moon and trying to tease out its secrets and what it told us about our place in the larger universe. We follow those attempts from Babylon through to Mesopotamia, China, Persia, Greece, and then on into the Scientific Revolution with Galileo and others.

Some of this will be familiar to anyone who reads popular science or science history; Galileo, Kepler, et.al. are well-trod territory thoroughly embedded in the mind. But Boyle brings a lot new to the table as well. Or at least, a good amount unfamiliar or forgotten to me (and I read a lot of science history). Such as Thomas Harriot, the first person to draw the Moon through a telescope, beating Galileo by four months. Or the Greek Anaxagoras, who argued planets/moon were rock (evidenced by meteorites), catalogued eclipses and comets, and recognized the moon’s glow was reflected sunlight, all of which led him to be put on trial for heresy and forced to flee into exile. And while I’m familiar with ancient monuments that trace movements of the moon and sun and mark solstices, and have even visited some, I hadn’t heard of the Nebra sky disc or Berlin gold hat, let alone the fascinating story of the museum curator who went undercover to get hold of the former.

Similarly, we’re all well aware of the Apollo missions, but even here Boyle finds the tiny details, such as how “humans need to feel about 15 percent of Earth’s gravitational force to sense which way is up … [which] might explain why it’s so hard to walk on the Moon.” Or how “The moon has an acrid aroma, like fireworks that have just gone off,” according to those few who have actually smelled the Moon. In this section Boyle focuses much more on the science the missions enabled rather than the gee-whiz technological marvel of the achievement. One of my favorite parts is her visit to the site where NASA stores all the rocks brought back from the Moon, not just for the explanation of what we learned from them but for her infectious enthusiasm, as she describes her trip thusly: “The Lunar Sample Lab is no Holy Sepulchre of course, and the Moon rocks are not religious relics. But visiting them is a sort of devotional pilgrimage.” I can totally get behind that comparison.

Boyle closes with a look into the future, and human hopes for returning to the Moon. She is more than a little concerned about what that may entail. And in fact she argues instead that, “we don’t need to build a human settlement on the Moon. We don’t need to do anything at all to the Moon. The Moon cannot speak for itself. We have to speak for it … The Moon belongs to everyone, which means it belongs to no one.”

My only criticisms of Our Moon are relatively minor. One is that the narrative can be so digressive that it can at times feel a little disconnected, though if one waits long enough Boyle always cycles back to being on point. The other is that at times when Boyle brings up areas of scientific or historic debate, while she touches on the fact there is such a debate, I would have liked to have had a better, more detailed sense of the argument. So instead of lines like, “if Gaffney’s interpretation is correct” or “if this is true”, I wanted to know more about the alternatives. That said, Boyle does at times go further, either in the text proper or in the notes. As I said, the complaints are minor and certainly didn’t detract from the reading experience. By the end, you’ll know much more not just about the Moon as a physical presence but as a cultural and historical one as well.

Thank you to Rebecca Boyle, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Before starting to read "Our Moon" I had expected it to be full of scientific facts about the moon including its geography, geology, orbit, inner composition, history of creation, etc. The book did include these informative aspects, but I was surprised to also find discussion on the role of the moon in the culture and history of the human race. As a modern human, I look at my very accurate iphone calendar to make important seasonal decisions or plan for annual gatherings with friends. Many aspects of how ancient humans planned their social gatherings, planting and harvesting of crops, fishing trips, etc. had never occurred to me before reading this book. I was likewise surprised and puzzled by the deep mathematical understanding that analysis of archaeological digs have shown must have been present many of thousands of years ago to track and predict the secondary cycles of the moon (not just the primary 28 day cycle, but other smaller cycles of its movement relative to the earth) prior to the invention of written mathematics or language. Absolutely mind boggling!

This book has definitely changed not only the way I view the night and the moon, but also the way I view human history. I highly recommend it!

It’s existence is inseparable from that of the Earth. It’s influence - physical, practical, spiritual, political – is vast. Rebecca Boyle did a huge amount of research to compile this story of the Moon and it’s importance to humans. Since she covers topics ranging from science to philosophy different sections will appeal to different readers. I found the first section on science captivating, but for me the section on the prehistoric human interactions with the moon got bogged down and a bit off topic. Reactions will vary, but this is a detailed survey that is well written and quite informative.

This book is enchanting! Our moon is 100% my cup of tea and I would imagine anyone else who has gazed up into the sky at night to admire its beauty would agree. Rebecca Boyle's exploration of our history with the moon is captivating. There is a lot of information here. Boyle covers space exploration with the Apollo missions, archaeology and ancient cultures, mythology and folklore, and how the moon impacts our current day-to-day functioning.

I found this book especially intriguing as we have not returned to the moon in 50 some odd years.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for this beautiful ARC!

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for access to this arc.

I’ve read a lot of books about space exploration and specifically NASA’s Apollo missions but what interested me about reading this book was that it would cover more about the Moon than just that. Earth has a long history with the Moon and I wanted to read about that. The book is divided into sections, some of which worked better for me than others. Be aware that for the most part, it has a very European/Middle Eastern focus with only brief references to Chinese astronomers and a slight detour to discuss First Puebloans in North America.

It may be pedantic of me but there are some flubs that I hope will be corrected before publication. Boyle discusses how the Moon retains a geologic record of asteroid and meteor impacts while, due to wind, water and subduction, the Earth does not have any.

“Combined with wind, water is a destroyer of worlds. Entire mountain ranges rise and fall through the work of water. It also erases craters. Though the timing and duration of the beating are still up for debate, we know Earth was bombarded by asteroids long ago, and yet there are no battle scars to show for it.”

Um yes, there are. Vredefort Crater, Chicxulub Crater, Sudbury Crater, Popigai Crater, Manicouagan Crater, Acraman Crater, Morokweng Crater, Kara Crater, Beaverhead Crater, Meteor Crater, and the Chesapeake Bay Crater are just the top eleven ones. Also there are some things such as not listing BCE/CE/or adding no notation at all to certain dates as well as some other pesky things like listing a temperature with both Fahrenheit and Kelvin degrees in one place but then only one in the other. Why? Okay I admit that these last two are more inconsequential but if you’re writing a book with facts, get them correct and consistent so I don’t begin to doubt anything else in the book.


The first section is mostly science based and focused on astronomy. There’s lots of science here including various past and present ideas about how our Moon was formed, how planets were (probably) formed, and many scientific terms used for all this. Apollo missions feature in it a lot. I agree with other reviewers that this section is a bit dry and might be the reason I had difficulty plowing my way through this part and had to force myself to focus a lot.

Part two is what I view as more anthropologically focused and I loved it. Could the moon have influenced the development of life on Earth? Then once the tidal pool of amino acids yielded life, the wildly swinging tides of areas with lots of fossil evidence of the lobed fishes might have been where life crawled out of the oceans and onto land. The author makes some compelling arguments and backs them up with information about the scientific experiments being done now as well as fossils that have been discovered.

Boyle visits locations (mainly in Scotland) and discusses discoveries (such as the Nebra Sky Disc) which point out how Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built spaces and things to possibly track the Moon to tell future time and correct drifts between solstices and Moon based time keeping. The narrative then shifts to ancient Mesopotamia and their Moon God and how a king’s devotion to this deity might have led to the downfall of the Babylonian empire. Ancient Greeks watched the Moon’s movements but they, along with Ptolemy, and the view of an infallible Bible screwed up European beliefs for over a millennium. It took until the late sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries to begin to accept Moon and planetary movements as they really are.

The book finishes up with a bit of discussion on if/should/will we journey back to the Moon and the implications of this. Businesses are the ones driving this and businesses are usually for profit. Is it right to turn the Moon into a business venture and who will profit? As I said, I enjoyed some parts of the book more than others but it gave me plenty of cool information and things to think about. B-/C+

There has been a recent trend of writing non-fiction books that look at history from the perspective of a particular phenomenon. While it often gives an interesting perspective on well-known facts, it has its caveats. In this case, the result is a bit chaotic.

The book starts with geology, describing the origin of the Moon and its influence on the Earth, then dives into archaeology and folklore, and ends with the history of space exploration. You will find a lot of interesting facts here, but overall it feels fragmented. And as some other reviewers mentioned, the style is a bit dry and sometimes not very engaging. But I think hardcore fans of astronomy will find it fascinating.

Thanks to the publisher, Random House, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

“Our Moon” offers a solid exploration of lunar science and history. While informative, it lacks a captivating narrative, making it a bit dry for readers seeking a more engaging experience.

A fun cultural history of my friend and yours, the Moon.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Also, NetGalley seems to be holding my review hostage, saying I need to add more characters. So here are more characters.

This book looks at the moon and its relationship with Earth and humanity. There is some harder science in this book but the majority is historical and absolutely fascinating. For example, one chapter explores how the moon helped evolution along and another looks at ancient (very ancient) civilization and their relationships with the moon. I learned quite a bit from this book and definitely recommend for both astronomy and history buffs. I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.

I tried but this one was not for me. It was far too dry to start and I wanted more woo woo astrology moon stuff which just isn’t this book lol

Spanning 4.5 billion years, this book explores the Moon’s pivotal role in Earth’s evolution. From stabilizing its orbit to impacting climate and migration patterns, the Moon has profoundly shaped life on Earth while holding enduring religious and cultural significance.

This fascinating book offers a multidisciplinary look at how the moon has influenced human civilization. I was especially intrigued by the book’s in-depth coverage of the Theia hypothesis, some of which surprised me.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

A loving tribute to the moon, with chapters touching on the creation of the moon, its role in ancient human cultures, and modern scientific discoveries. Far from a dry academic treatise, Boyle fills the book with humanity, sharing stories of people ancient and modern whose lives have been touched by the moon in various ways.

This is a lovely book that examines the Moon from scientific, folkloric, poetic, and other points of view, offering readers all sorts of eclectic information about our constant companion in the galaxy. I loved Boyle's ability to write about multiple approaches to studying how the Moon has affected human life, and how we measure that influence. Readers will be charmed, whatever their bent.

Thank you to the publisher for giving me access to this arc. My love for the moon has only grown since I was a child and being able to add context to it in this way was special. I really appreciate this book and the information that was given. It was easy to follow and my appreciation for the moon has only grown. What a special book!