Holiday reading suggestion?

As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not have
access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its light (and
hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any observing as I read.

Thanks

"AB" wrote in message
...
As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not have
access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its light
(and hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any observing as I
read.

Thanks


Anything by Carl Sagan will be a decent read.

AB wrote:
As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not have
access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its light (and
hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any observing as I read.

Thanks

'Time Machine' - H.G. Wells 1898

"'Scientific people,' proceeded the Time Traveller, after the pause
required for the proper assimilation of this, 'know very well that
Time is only a kind of Space."

http://www.bartleby.com/1000/1.html

Relativity - Albert 1920

"THE NON-MATHEMATICIAN is seized by a mysterious shuddering when he
hears of "four-dimensional" things, by a feeling not unlike that
awakened by thoughts of the occult. And yet there is no more
common-place statement than that the world in which we live is a
four-dimensional space-time continuum."

http://www.bartleby.com/173/17.html

Then go outside with some of your favorite music and look out on the
magnificence of the great astronomical cycles that make your existence
possible.Spare a thought for the great astronomical tradition that is
lost to history,replaced by a shell based on a 1898 science fiction
novel.

`Starlight Nights` by Leslie C. Peltier from Sky Publishing
Excellent book, you will reread it many times!
Steve

AB wrote:
[D]oes anybody have any suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?
. . . . Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. snip

Light reading:

Sobel, D. 2005. The Planets. Viking. ISBN: 0670034460

Watson, Fred. 2005. Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope.
De Capo Press. ISBN: 0306814323

Heavier reading:

Sobel, D. 1996. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved
the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. ISBN: 0140258795

Hirshfeld, Alan W. 2001. Parallax: The Race to Measure the Cosmos.
Henry Holt & Co. 2001prmc.book.....H
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...rmc.book.....H

Still a little heavier:

Waller, W.H. & Hodge, P.W. 2003. Galaxies and the Cosmic Frontier.
Harvard Univ. Press. 2003gcf..book.....W
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...cf..book.....W

Carter, B. & M. 2002. Latitude: How American Astronomers Solved the
Mystery of of Variation. Naval Instit. Press. ISBN 1-55750-016-9
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/np...haa.book.....C

- Canopus56

"AB" wrote in message
...
As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not have
access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its light
(and hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any observing as I
read.

Thanks

Look out for "Astronomy and the Imagination" by Norman Davidson - a superb
read. Sadly out of print, but available from several secondhand dealers via
abebooks.co.uk.

Although its title sounds a bit 'new-agey', it is basically a run down of
how observations without telescopes can inform us about the apparent
movements of Sun Moon Planets etc. How movements on the ecliptic and equator
link to give rise to an understanding of the Solar System.

AB wrote

holiday reading [...] astro-related [...] nothing too heavy

Man on the moon, by Andrew Chaikin.
Apollo 13, by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.

--
Hil

"AB" wrote in message
...
As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not have
access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its light
(and hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any observing as I
read.

Thanks

Three old classics that I thoroughly enjoyed which give a lighthearted yet
very informative walk through cosmology and quantum physics:

The Dancing Wu Li Masters - Gary Zukav
Zen and the Art of Motorocycle Maintenance - Robert M. Pirsig
A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking

If you get a copy of "Seeing In The Dark" by Timothy Ferris you will
not be disappointed, I have read my copy 3 times over the last few
years and when I'm not reading it, it's usually on loan to someone
else. It is a beautifully written story about amateur astronomy and
astronomers, not some dry textbook or sky guide. This is the book I
would save if my house caught fire (I'd have to leave the Millenium
Atlas - it's too heavy and would slow me down!).
In a similar vein is "Stargazing" by Charles Laird Calia, which
eloquently describes one man's return to astronomy 25 years after
selling his telescope as a student. Not as long or wide ranging as
"Seeing in the Dark", but an entertaining read, and you can really
empathise with him as he learns the hard way.
I also recently enjoyed "Riding Rockets" by Mike Mullane, 3 time
astronaut. You could say this book would not be endorsed by NASA, but
it is a perceptive and honest account of living and working for them
through the years of the Shuttle program.

"AB" wrote in :

As we are possibly like-minded people here, does anybody have any
suggestions for some holiday reading this summer?

Any astro-related recommendations would be welcome although as I am a
relative beginner nothing too heavy please. Bear in mind i will not
have access to my scope and most likely I will be reading it when its
light (and hopefully sunny) so nothing that requires me to do any
observing as I read.

Thanks



If you are interested in astro history. I found Kitty Ferguson's joint
biography of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler a good read.

Klazmon.