My 10 Favorite Astronomy Books.
by Christopher Sarnecki
Printed in Reflections: February, 2010.
Recently having cleaned out a bunch of old issues of Sky & Telescope magazines from years past, I came upon
a reoccurring article titled ‘My 10 Favorite Deep-Sky Wonders’.
It made me think that some day I’ll write a
similar article for our club newsletter, but not just yet (still working
on that list). Instead I thought how about
writing an article about my 10 favorite Astronomy books. Like many of my
fellow Lowbrows, I have a personal
collection of astronomy books that I have read over the years; and, still
wrap my self around some of
these texts during the long cold and cloudy Michigan winters. If you need
astro book recommendations, then
you have come to the right place. So here is my top 10 list, presented
in no particular order....
1. A Brief History of Time, From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen
Hawkings, 1988. This is
the book that started my interest in all things astronomy. Someone gave
me a copy of this book; I
started reading it, and couldn’t put it down. Many of you are aware,
that this was the book that thrust
Stephen Hawkings into popular public notoriety. Its very easy reading on
the complicated subject of
the creation of the Universe, our passage through this thing called time,
and the existence of Black
Holes. It is also simply illustrated in a way that allows us understand
some very complicated cosmological
theories. During the reading of this book, I started going outside of the
house and looking up at
the night sky. Shortly after that I joined the Lowbrows, and as they say,
the rest is history.
2. The Alchemy of the Heavens, Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way by
Ken Croswell, 1995.
Aside from being just another book that attempts to describe the Universe,
or more specifically our
Milky Way, this book provides an excellent understanding of the chemical
workings (alchemy) of
stars, dust and gas; and, galaxies. If some of you are like me, the study
of chemistry in high school and
collage did not come easy, but after reading this book, I found that the
author describes this subject in a
way that anyone with a general interest in the formation of stars and galaxies
can understand. I have
read this book twice and will probably read it again in the future. While
not a book for scholastic pushovers,
it is highly recommend for those agreeable to applying your gray matter
to understanding the
galaxy you live in.
3. Starlight Nights, The Adventures of a Star-Gazer by Leslie C. Peltier,
1965. An autobiography
with illustrations (very good ones I might say) by the author. What can
I say about this book except if
you call yourself an amateur astronomer, you have better have read it.
The story chronicles life in the
first half of the 1900s from the coming of age, through adulthood of the
epic comet discoverer and variable
star observer Leslie Peltier. Written in the style of a popular novel,
one could think this was science
fiction but it is science fact. The updated 1999 Sky Publishing version
comes with many additional
photographs that further illustrate this amateur’s amateur astronomer’s
life. Don’t be caught not
having read this astronomy tome or else you risk losing your amateur status.
4. The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, 1980. If you are middle age, and many
of our members are; you lived
through America’s Space Age and the landing of men on the Moon. What
book would you pick to best
represent that time in our history? Well for me this book best documents
the early days of America’s
development of high performance jet aircraft from the X-15 to flying in
(and crashing) the F-104, as
well as NASA’s early Mercury and Apollo programs. So strap you harness
in tight, cause you gonna
need it. OK, so this book blurs the line between reporting on historic
fact and just plain entertainment.
Do I care? Heck no girls! This book is dripping with testosterone. If you
don’t get enough here, I suggest
you read Chuck Yeager’s 1985 Autobiography by the same name. [PS—Editor
Emeritus Note—I
really must talk to this guy on the importance of being PC.]
5. Black Holes & Time Warps, Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy by Kip
S. Thorne, 1994. 600 pages of
topics devoted to Relativity, Space and Time, Black Holes, White Dwarfs,
and Time Travel written by
one of the modern age’s foremost cosmological theorist. Voted as the
one book I would want to be
stranded with on a deserted island (along with a good star atlas and never
ending supply of Yuengling Black-and-Tan. Hey, why should I suffer?). Well illustrated with diagrams
and photographs. Highly
recommended to those among us that need professional help in understanding
all things cosmological.
Intermission: Raging Bitc_, Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick, MD, Floral,
fruitiness nose, this 20th anniversary
brew packs a full IPU flavor with attitude. Dirty Bastar_, Founders Brewing,
Grand Rapids, MI,
Earthy bourbon smoothness with a bit of a dry ending. Gonzo Imperial Porter,
Flying Dog Brewery, Frederick,
MD, No better porter will you ever have. Deep chocolate richness that borders
on an Imperial
Stout.
6. The Perfect Machine, Building the Palomar Telescope by Ronald Florenee,
1994. An absolutely
amazing story about George Hale’s building of the 200-inch telescope
and observatory on Palomar
Mountain in southern California in the first half of the 1900s. I enjoyed
this book so much, after leaving
a copy at a car rental near LAX, I bought another copy. Here is a hyperlink
to my trip to Palomar
with some pics in a hope to get you interested in reading this
book—http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2003/csarnecki.13.html
7. Rocket Boys by Homer H. Hickam, Jr., 1998. A true story about a young
man growing up in the coal mining
town of Coalwood, West Virginia during the 60s at the time of Russia’s
Sputnik launch. If
you love rockets, then this book is for you. Part human drama on what it
was like to live in an Appalachian
coal-mining town, and part an understanding of the initial development
of amateur rocketry. You
may have heard of the movie based on this book, titled October Sky. As
good as the movie was, the
book is better. Not many books support the movie version as well as this
book does in my opinion.
8. Deep-Sky Wonders by Walter Scott Houston, 1999. This book is a compilation
of many years of the
author’s Sky & Telescope column. Organized by monthly observing
programs for amateur astronomers.
‘Scotty’ as he was affectionately known by amateurs everywhere,
writes on his observations by
shedding new light on common objects, bring our attention to overlooked
objects, and collecting insights
from Sky & Telescope readers. This book has caused me to spend large
amounts of time pouring
over star charts following up on new objects to observe.
9. Seeing in the Dark, How Amateur Astronomers are Discovering the Wonders
of the Universe by
Timothy Ferris, 2002. See my previously report on this book
at—http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/2004/csarnecki.14.html.
Many Lowbrows know about
this book having attended a lecture given by the author as part of the
2009 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads
Program. Highly recommended.
10. Brother Astronomer, Adventures of a Vatican Scientist by Brother Guy
Consolmagno, 2000. Upon
hearing Brother Guy was coming to Ann Arbor to give a talk to the Lowbrows,
I read this book so I
could have a better understanding about the speaker (Note to self—Next
time don’t miss the lecture 
).
The author, raised in southeast Michigan, is a Jesuit Brother, Planetary
Scientist, and curator of the
Vatican’s meteorite collection. Brother Guy engages his reader in
the religion versus science debate
that has gone on since the early days of the church. He does a great job
at defusing preconceptions of
perceived conflicts between the study of theology and science with out
offending his reader. I came
away with a respect of his place in science and a real sense of enjoyment
about reading of his pursuit of
meteorites during his expedition to the Antarctic.
So there it is. I could have listed my top 20 books for there are so many
great texts out there for us amateur
astronomers. If you have some books you would recommend, I would like to
see your list of your 10 favorite
Astronomy Books. After all, I am always looking for more great Astronomy Books!
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