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List Price: £12.99
Our Price: £7.43
Author:
Anton Vamplew
By Collins
 An Astronomy Book from an Enthusiast., 2006-02-11
Simple Stargazing is a book that has been written by an enthusiast. In fact, you can hear his enthusiasm bursting forth from every page. Forget the dull, dry books of facts that used to be the choice for astronomy textbooks, here is a book that lives. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who has at least a passing interest in the stars above them. It will inform, but furthermore it will entertain.
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £0.44
Author:
Andrew Smith
By Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
A book by an ordinary guy meeting ordinary guys...who did extraordinary things, 2008-10-13
I was a real spaceflight geek when I was a kid - I think I still am, deep down. But I'd had my fill of cutaway-diagrammed, statistic-filled glossy coffee-table books about the Apollo Missions and, at the age of 30, wanted to read something a bit more human.
Some of the reviewers here have criticised the book because it's more about Andrew Smith's journey than it is about the astronauts themselves. But that's the point. He starts out being this schoolkid, wowed by the Apollo landings on TV, and as an adult decides to track the pilots down before they're lost forever. It's about his personal mission as much as theirs. And if their missions changed their lives, their lives certainly changed Smith's mission. The long, friendly chat with Alan Bean, still cheery and talented at the age of over 70, is pivotal to this. For these people are more than just astronauts: They're flesh and blood people with families, just like the rest of us. Smith is one of the few spaceflight authors who deals with this aspect of things head-on.
This book was fascinating, sometimes hilarious, often profoundly moving. Very few books tell the story of Apollo from this perspective, because they're books for the brain. This is a book for the heart, and needs to be read as such.
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: £8.57
Author:
Michael Collins, Charles Lindbergh
By Cooper Square Press
The best Apollo book I've read - impossible to put down, 2008-10-22
I've read many books about the Apollo program and have to agree with other reviewers that Michael Collins' account is by far the most enjoyable read and shows the astronaut who has spent years in the shadow of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to be a very intelligent, witty and likeable story teller. Absolutely brilliant!
For readers who want to see more of this famously illusive astronaut, he takes a leading role (along with his infectious personality) in the film In The Shadow Of The Moon [2007]
List Price: £29.99
Our Price: £15.17
Author:
Terence Dickinson
By A & C Black Publishers Ltd
The third edition of Nightwatch continues its tradition of being the best handbook for the novice astronomer. Terence Dickinson covers all the problems beginners face, starting with the fact that the night sky does not look the way a modern city-dweller expects. He discusses light pollution, how to choose binoculars and telescopes, how to pronounce the names of stars and constellations, telescope mounts, averted vision and why the Harvest Moon looks especially bright. Most of the lovely photographs in the book were taken by amateurs, which gives the section on astrophotography a particularly inspirational gleam. Dickinson's star charts are very handy, each covering a reasonable field of view and mapping the most interesting amateur objects. He gives good advice for planet watching, which he notes "is one of the few astronomical activities that can be conducted almost as well from the city as from dark rural locations." Altogether, the maxim for Nightwatch is indeed "practical": this is a book to be used, not just read. Spiral-bound to lie flat or to fold back undamaged, this is a field guide that pulls its own weight in the field. ...
Best beginners book, 2007-03-10
Interested in astronomy? Thinking of buying a telescope? Please buy this book first. It will tell you everything you need to know about the different types of telescopes and all the different accessories including eyepieces and mounts. It is very easy to waste your money buying the wrong type. This book is one of the most comprehensive guides available. In my opinion it is THE guide. As well as being an equipment guide is also an excellent introduction to actual observing.
After you buy your telescope have a look at Turn Left at Orion.
These two books are the ones recommended most often to beginners on astronomy forums.
List Price: £5.99
Our Price: £2.95
By Philip's
List Price: £12.50
Our Price: £7.83
Author:
Giles Sparrow
By Quercus Publishing Plc
Definitely worth getting, 2006-11-23
This book is fully up to date, now that Pluto isn't a classed as a planet, with beautiful pictures and easy writing. I will be getting of this book out of the cupboard even if it just for looking at these amazing pictures.
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £4.88
Author:
Tom Wolfe
By Vintage
Tom Wolfe began The Right Stuff at a time when it was unfashionable to contemplate American heroism. Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, the nation was reeling from the catastrophe of Vietnam, and in 1979--the year the book appeared--Americans were being held hostage by Iranian militants. Yet it was exactly the anachronistic courage of his subjects that captivated Wolfe. In his foreword, he notes that as late as 1970, almost one in four career Navy pilots died in accidents. "The Right Stuff," he explains, "became a story of why men were willing--willing?--delighted!--to take on such odds in this, an era literary people had long since characterized as the age of the anti-hero." Wolfe's roots in New Journalism were intertwined with the nonfiction novel that Truman Capote had pioneered with In Cold Blood. As Capote did, Wolfe tells his story from a limited omniscient perspective, dropping into the lives of his "characters" as each in turn becomes a major player in the space program. After an opening chapter on the terror of being a test pilot's wife, the story cuts back to the late 1940s, when Americans were first attempting to break the sound barrier....
a masterpiece, 2007-10-29
I just re-read this book, having recommended it to a friend, and was once again swept up in its remarkable story. Wolfe takes you back to the start of the space race, and shows how the first American astronauts were perceived as single combat heroes of the Cold War. The tale is told in a unique style, somewhere between novel and non-fiction, and Wolfe's distinctive phrases continue to rattle around in my head some twenty years after I first read the book. So-and-so "screwed the pooch", for example, or "it can blow at any seam", or "His Majesty the Baby of thirty years ago". Momeorable stuff.
List Price: £30.00
Our Price: £20.98
Author:
Terence Dickinson, Alan Dyer
By Firefly Books Ltd
The best guide for buying and using a telescope, 2008-12-21
Simply a wonderfully written book. It explains complicated issues with sublime simplicity. I often take a long time to read such books but I finished this in 3 days. I recommend this as your first buy, and it may well remain your last.
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: £5.52
Author:
Carl Sagan
By Abacus
The Universe, 2008-07-24
Despite being written nearly thirty years ago, Carl Sagan's Cosmos remains one of the greatest works of popular science ever published. It's a great shame that I never came across Sagan's work as a child (even though I was interested in stargazing) as this book fuels your imagination and fills you with wonder about the universe and our place in it.
Yet, this book is more than just a look at Astronomy and Space Travel. Carl Sagan traces the evolution of life from its cosmic origins in the Big Bang, to the creation of our galaxy, and to the forming of the sun and our own planet. He then shows us how life on earth evolved, and how our journey across billions of years of evolution was frought with dangers. It is surprising that we exist at all, let alone that way survived and flourished. As Sagan points out, numerous other species could have taken our place as the dominant form of life on Earth had we never existed.
Sagan also discusses the history of Science, tracing its story from the early Pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece, to the library at Alexandria in Egypt, and the flourishing of science in Newton, Kepler and Brahe's time.I found his discussion on Greek philosophy fascinating, and the chapter on Johannes Kepler's life made for interesting reading.
With subjects as diverse as the search for alien life, the Martian landscape, Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, plans for futuristic spaceships, nuclear war, and the human brain; Cosmos presents you with plenty of thought provoking subjects.
My only criticism, and it is a small one, is that the book did not contain any illustrations or photographs.
I remember viewing the night sky through binoculars as a child and being awed at seeing the stars and the moon as I had never seen them before. Reading Cosmos almost gave me that same feeling of awe, and there's only a few factual books that can do that to you. Carl Sagan was a gifted writer who could convey complex ideas in easy to understand manner. A brilliant and informative read. Highly recommended!
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