Not terribly well written, and self-published; something of a shame, really, because The Encyclopedia of Cosmic Close Encounters provides a reasonably – well, encyclopedic – treatment of various meteorite falls, especially those that hit buildings, cars, or otherwise came close to people. The main problem with the book is the mix of popular and technical. Most of the reports seem to be summaries of newspaper accounts, with the usual lay misconceptions about meteorites being radioactive or hot to the touch; although Povenmire debunks these briefly in his introduction, someone picking up the book and thumbing through it would probably get wrong ideas. At the same time, Povenmire describes the mineralogy of every meteorite (“olivine hypersthene chrondite L5 S3”) without bothering to explain what any of that means. Picked up, appropriately enough, at Meteor Crater in Arizona (which does a good job with the museum but could use a better bookstore). ( )