# Recommend me your favorite physics/astronomy books
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [January 4, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648 "2010-01-04T18:11:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@This\_Just\_In\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/This_Just_In_2)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/1 "2010-01-04T18:11:47Z")
Recommend me your favorite physics/astronomy books - so I don’t waste the gift cards I got for Christmas.
Thanks!
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/2 "2010-01-04T18:27:05Z")
I just finished [The Lightness of Being](http://www.amazon.com/Lightness-Being-Ether-Unification-Forces/dp/0465003214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262629511&sr=8-1) by Frank Wilczek. It’s a pretty great read about the Standard Model (or what he calls The Grid), his contributions to it, explaining Quantum Colordynamics, how they hope to further tie together gravity with the quantum world (unification), and the LHC.
He’s an interesting guy with a Nobel Prize under his belt. His book was very enlightening on current quantum thinking.
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### Author:  [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2010, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/3 "2010-01-04T19:01:29Z")
_Death from the Skies_ by Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer).
_The Five Ages of the Universe_ by Adams and Laughlin.
_Alice in Quantumland_ by Robert Gilmore.
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/4 "2010-01-04T19:48:47Z")
Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
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### Author:  [@Hallucinex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hallucinex)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/5 "2010-01-05T10:50:18Z")
_Big Bang_ by Simon Singh may be worth a look. Just read it recently and quite enjoyed it.
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### Author:  [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/6 "2010-01-05T12:52:44Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#):
>
> Death by Black Hole by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
**The Pluto Files** by Tyson is also an entertaining read.
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### Author:  [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2010, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-your-favorite-physics-astronomy-books/523648/7 "2010-01-05T12:58:27Z")
Two by Roger Penrose:
The Emperor’s New Mind 1990 for casual reading. [The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose](http://www.friesian.com/penrose.htm)
The Road to Reality if you are mathematically inclined.
Second on Singh’s Big Bang for a typical fun read for us layfolk.
There are boatloads of cosmology and big bang books. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a crummy one.