Written by Carl Sagan. A really great book. Deals with many different topics, including pollution, abortion, God, ET life/intelligence, etc. Sagan died right as he was wrapping up the book and his wife wrote about the last few days of his life. End is sad b/c near end Sagan says that he finds out he has cancer but thinks he'll be fine and recover, then the next section is his wife saying how he died. :(
BTW,
Contact, written by
Sagan, is also very good
IMHO.