Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe Book

A basic, easy-to-read, and very handsomely illustrated book by SETI-astronomer Seth Shostak and science popularizer Alex Barnett on the search for life in the universe. It basically covers all the issues, from a description of the habitats for life, to the question what aliens might look like, how likely intelligent life would be, whether aliens have already visited us (UFOs), to the issue how we might get in touch with aliens (SETI). Also covered is a chapter with a lucid explanation of the famous Drake Equation. And all that in less than 170 pages.

The book is careful about claiming that life definitely must exist elsewhere, but the writers seem to slide towards the optimistic part of the spectrum. The book was published in 2003. In the mean time a lot of new findings with regard to exoplanets have occurred, so the book would need an update (which I guess will not happen, since too many other books on astrobiology and extraterrestrial life have come out in the mean time).

This book makes for some very pleasant reading, written with a lot of mild humor and irony. Moreover, it still is a good summary of the issues surrounding the search for ET...