Richard,
First, I'll second the nomination of Longitude. However, I'll add that
it is well worth it to get "The Illustrated Longitude", by Dava Sobel
and William J.H. Andrewes. (Yes, believe it or not, Andrewes name is
spelled like that!). The illustrations are wonderful and add a lot to
the already-good book. The result is a great book.
Next, staying on the theme of "Astronomers Royal Behaving Badly" (more
on that later), try "The Neptune File", by Tom Standage. A really
well-written account of the events surrounding the discovery of
Neptune, one of Astronomy's great stories.
I also liked "The Book of Nothing" by John D. Barrow. This book
describes many aspects of nothing, including the abstract, mathematical
concept of zero (a relatively recent concept, and one with very
interesting social and cultural issues), as well as the physics concept
of the vacuum (again, a concept that was very hard for the people and
cultures at the time of its discovery to absorb), and the more modern
concept of "vacuum energy". Interesting stuff.
Finally, maybe a surprise, maybe not: "A Traveler's Guide to Mars" by
William K. Hartmann. Simply a great book. The guy is responsible for
major discoveries in planetary science, including stuff about Mars, so
he knows what he's talking about. And it could be very dry reading --
but it's not. I don't know how he did it, but it is a nice read.
Cheers, Bob J.
(I was going to pull your leg about the great "Star Clusters" book by
Archinal and Hynes, but Jamie beat me to the punch.)
Received on Sun Oct 9 19:37:48 2005