Fw: Zoom link for DAS book club meeting Thursday August 27 at 7 p.m.

[aberz...@aol.com]

HAL members - 

See news from our MERAL region below.

Diane Ackerman's book has been reissued, and she will present on it.

In the past Carl Sagan complimented her work.

Later,

Aldis - HAL ALCOR

Subject: Zoom link for DAS book club meeting Thursday August 27 at 7 p.m.

Greetings MERAL Presidents, ALCors, editors, officers and others,

Below is the Zoom link for the DAS book club meeting this Thursday, August 27, at 7 p.m. This should be a wonderful meeting with the famous author Diane Ackerman in conversation with David Levy the astronomer and comet hunter.

Please share this with your club members.

Clear skies,

Don Knabb, MERAL Chair

FROM MARY WEBB, DELAWARE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY LIBRARIAN

You and your guests are cordially invited to attend the August meeting of the Delaware Astronomical Society Library Book Club this Thursday, August 27, 2026  at 7:00 PM Eastern Time Via Zoom Link

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81501016249?pwd=oBoPljMpYvAtK0CgH4WE40kJNCeajm.1

Meeting ID: 815 0101 6249

Passcode: 247137

We will discuss a book of poetry written in 1973 so cherished that it was reissued this year with a forward by the brilliant essayist, Maria Popova.

The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral
by Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman will join us to discuss her work with the renowned astronomer and DAS Library Poet Laureate, David H. Levy.

"Diane Ackerman has produced a stunning book of poetry in The Planets, the result of a year's immersion in the recent findings in planetary astronomy. The work is scientifically accurate and even a convenient introduction to modern ideas on the planets, but much more important, it is spectacularly good poetry, clear, lyrical and soaring... One of the triumphs of Ackerman's pastoral is the demonstration of how closely compatible planetary exploration and poetry, science and art really are."
Carl Sagan, The New Republic

Poet and author Julie Swarstad Johnson will lead the evening’s discussion.

Julie Swarstad Johnson is the author of the poetry collections The Night Season (forthcoming 2027) and Pennsylvania Furnace (2019), as well as the chapbook Orchard Light (2020). She co-edited Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight (2020), a poetry anthology collecting sixty years of writing about space exploration. She has been Poet in Residence at Lowell Observatory and Gettysburg National Park. In March 2024, she was a crew member for Imagination 1, a simulated lunar mission with an all-artist crew at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. She lives in Tucson and works as an archivist and librarian at the University of Arizona Poetry Center.

Maria Popova's essay A Cosmic Pastoral: Diane Ackerman on the Intimate in the Infinite and the Responsibility of Rapture

Complete Zoom Invitation with Phone Access Details:

Delaware Astronomical Society is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: DAS Library Book Club August Meeting The Planets Ackerman, Levy, and  Swarstad Johnson
Time: Aug 27, 2026 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81501016249?pwd=oBoPljMpYvAtK0CgH4WE40kJNCeajm.1

Meeting ID: 815 0101 6249
Passcode: 247137

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+19294362866,,81501016249#,,,,*247137# US (New York)
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https://us02web.zoom.us/meetings/81501016249/invitations?signature=O8E7A9TPEAzPONq1VqcshUuTImFvE6_fWDsAmtreRSw

Mary Webb

Delaware Astronomical Society Librarian