Best Popular Astronomy Books on Goodreads
Top 10 Best Popular Astronomy Books on Goodreads
: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, The Grand Design, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, A Briefer History of Time, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
| Author | Carl Sagan |
| ISBN | 0345409469 |
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand the difference between the myths of pseudoscience and the testable hypotheses of science? Pulitzer Prize-winning author and distinguished astronomer Carl Sagan argues that scientific...
| Author | Stephen Hawking |
| ISBN | 0553805371 |
THE FIRST MAJOR WORK IN NEARLY A DECADE BY ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREAT THINKERS—A MARVELOUSLY CONCISE BOOK WITH NEW ANSWERS TO THE ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF LIFE
When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are...
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time
| Author | Dava Sobel |
| ISBN | 0802714625 |
Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day—and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon...
Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
| Author | Neil deGrasse Tyson |
| ISBN | 0393350398 |
Our true origins are not just human, or even terrestrial, but in fact cosmic. Drawing on recent scientific breakthroughs and the current cross-pollination among geology, biology, astrophysics, and cosmology, Origins explains the soul-stirring leaps in our understanding of the cosmos. From the...
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
Bestselling author and acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss offers a paradigm-shifting view of how everything that exists came to be in the first place.
“Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than...
A Briefer History of Time
| Author | Stephen Hawking |
| ISBN | 0553804367 |
Stephen Hawking's worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing. Its author's engaging voice is one reason, and the compelling subjects he addresses is another; the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, the history and future of the...
Coming of Age in the Milky Way
| Author | Timothy Ferris |
| ISBN | 0060535954 |
From the second-century celestial models of Ptolemy to modern-day research institutes and quantum theory, this classic book offers a breathtaking tour of astronomy and the brilliant, eccentric personalities who have shaped it. From the first time mankind had an inkling of the vast space that surrounds...
Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium
| Author | Carl Sagan |
| ISBN | 0345379187 |
In the final book of his astonishing career, Carl Sagan brilliantly examines the burning questions of our lives, our world, and the universe around us. These luminous, entertaining essays travel both the vastness of the cosmos and the intimacy of the human mind, posing such fascinating questions...
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
| Author | Brian Greene |
| ISBN | 0965900584 |
From Brian Greene, one of the world’s leading physicists and author the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Elegant Universe, comes a grand tour of the universe that makes us look at reality in a completely different way.
Space and time form the very fabric of the cosmos. Yet they remain among the...
Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos
| Author | Michio Kaku |
| ISBN | 1400033721 |
In this thrilling journey into the mysteries of our cosmos, bestselling author Michio Kaku takes us on a dizzying ride to explore black holes and time machines, multidimensional space and, most tantalizing of all, the possibility that parallel universes may lay alongside our own. Kaku skillfully...
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
| Author | Brian Greene |
| ISBN | 0307265633 |
From the best-selling author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos comes his most expansive and accessible book to date—a book that takes on the grandest question: Is ours the only universe?
There was a time when “universe” meant all there is. Everything. Yet, in recent...
A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos
| Author | Dava Sobel |
| ISBN | 0802717934 |
By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and received wisdom to place the sun, not the earth, at the center of our universe, and set the earth spinning among the other planets. Over the...
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
| Author | Carl Sagan |
| ISBN | 1594201072 |
On the 10th anniversary of his death, brilliant astrophysicist and Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sagan's prescient exploration of the relationship between religion and science and his personal search for God.
Carl Sagan is considered one of the greatest scientific minds of our time. His remarkable...
The Science of Interstellar
| Author | Kip S. Thorne |
| ISBN | 0393351378 |
A journey through the otherworldly science behind Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film, Interstellar, from executive producer and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne.
Interstellar, from acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan, takes us on a fantastic voyage far beyond our solar...
Wonders of the Solar System
| Author | Brian Cox |
| ISBN | 0007386907 |
In Wonders of the Solar System – the book of the acclaimed BBC TV series – Professor Brian Cox will take us on a journey of discovery where alien worlds from your imagination become places we can see, feel and visit.
The Wonders of the Solar System – from the giant ice fountains of Enceladus...
Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The Astounding Interconnectedness of the Universe
| Author | Lisa Randall |
| ISBN | 0062328514 |
Bestselling author of Warped Passages and Knocking on Heaven's Door and one of today's most influential and highly cited theoretical physicists, Professor Lisa Randall once again effortlessly delivers fascinating science to the general reader. Weaving together the cosmos' history and our own...
Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in Florence in 1632, was the most proximate cause of his being brought to trial before the Inquisition. Using the dialogue form, a genre common in classical philosophical works, Galileo masterfully demonstrates the truth of...
Star Stuff: Carl Sagan and the Mysteries of the Cosmos
| Author | Stephanie Roth Sisson |
| ISBN | 1596439602 |
For every child who has ever looked up at the stars and asked, "What are they?" comes the story of a curious boy who never stopped wondering: Carl Sagan.
When Carl Sagan was a young boy he went to the 1939 World's Fair and his life was changed forever. From that day on he never stopped marveling at...
| Author | Peter Sís |
| ISBN | 0374470278 |
"If they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge." -- Galileo Galilei
In every age there are courageous people who break with tradition to explore new ideas and challenge accepted truths. Galileo Galilei was just such a man--a genius--and the first to turn the telescope to the...
| Author | Michael Talbot |
| ISBN | 0060922583 |
Today nearly everyone is familiar with holograms, three-dimensional images projected into space with the aid of a laser.
Now, two of the world's most eminent thinkers -- University of London physicists David Bohm, a former protege of Einstein's and one of the world's most respected quantum...
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
| Author | Randall Munroe |
| ISBN | 0544272994 |
Randall Munroe left NASA in 2005 to start up his hugely popular site XKCD 'a web comic of romance, sarcasm, math and language' which offers a witty take on the world of science and geeks. It now has 600,000 to a million page hits daily. Every now and then, Munroe would get emails asking him to arbitrate a science...
| Author | Margot Lee Shetterly |
| ISBN | 0062363603 |
The #1 New York Times Bestseller. Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA’s African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America’s space program. Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as ‘Human...
Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
| Author | Max Tegmark |
| ISBN | 1846144760 |
Our Mathematical Universe is a journey to explore the mysteries uncovered by cosmology and to discover the nature of reality. Our Big Bang, our distant future, parallel worlds, the sub-atomic and intergalactic - none of them are what they seem. But there is a way to understand this immense strangeness...
Accessory to War: The Unspoken Alliance Between Astrophysics and the Military
| Author | Neil deGrasse Tyson |
| ISBN | 0393357465 |
In this far-reaching foray into the millennia-long relationship between science and military power, acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-author Avis Lang examine how the methods and tools of astrophysics have been enlisted in the service of war. Spanning early celestial navigation...
The Universe in Your Hand: A Journey Through Space, Time, and Beyond
"If Ms. Frizzle were a physics student of Stephen Hawking, she might have written THE UNIVERSE IN YOUR HAND, a wild tour through the reaches of time and space, from the interior of a proton to the Big Bang to the rough suburbs of a black hole. It's friendly, excitable, erudite, and cosmic."
—Jordan...
Brief Answers to the Big Questions
| Author | Stephen Hawking |
| ISBN | 1984819194 |
Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying...
The Day We Found the Universe
| Author | Marcia Bartusiak |
| ISBN | 0375424296 |
On January 1, 1925, thirty-five-year-old Edwin Hubble announced the observation that ultimately established that our universe was a thousand trillion times larger than previously believed, filled with myriad galaxies like our own. This discovery dramatically reshaped how humans understood...
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
| Author | Mary Roach |
| ISBN | 0393339912 |
Maybe she could have titled the book The Right Stiff.
I needed to have tissues handy while reading Mary Roach’s latest. No, it is not because it made me sad, but because I was laughing so hard my eyes were gushing. Mary Roach has had that effect on me before. I have read two of her books. Stiff and...
Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond
| Author | Gene Kranz |
| ISBN | 0425179877 |
This memoir of a veteran NASA flight director tells riveting stories from the early days of the Mercury program through Apollo 11 (the moon landing) and Apollo 13, for both of which Kranz was flight director.
Gene Kranz was present at the creation of America’s manned space program and was...
A Man On the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts
| Author | Andrew Chaikin |
| ISBN | 0140272011 |
On the night of July 20, 1969, our world changed forever when two Americans, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, walked on the moon. Now the greatest event of the twentieth century is magnificently retold through the eyes and ears of the people who were there. Based on the interviews with twentythree moon...
