Book · recommended on 1 episode
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov ISBN 3498046071
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Vladimir Nabokov ISBN 3498046071
Find it on AmazonAffiliate link — we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
This book by Vladimir Nabokov came up once on Lex Fridman in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Katherine de Kleer. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.
A 999 line poem in heroic couplets, divided into 4 cantos, was composed--according to Nabokov's fiction--by John Francis Shade, an obsessively methodical man, during the last 20 days of his life.
“one of the first books that really captured my fascination was nabakov's book pale fire”— Katherine de Kleer
The guest here is Katherine de Kleer: Professor of planetary science and astronomy at Caltech who studies the surfaces, atmospheres, and thermochemical histories of planets and moons. She uses telescopes to observe volcanoes on Io, atmospheres on Titan, and other solar system objects. A Caltech planetary scientist explains why moons may be more exciting than planets, and where life might hide in our solar system.
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