Here are 100 books that Death by Black Hole fans have personally recommended if you like
Death by Black Hole.
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I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
OK, maybe it’s funny to recommend a book that sold in the millions. But this, and the TV series that went along with it, remains the best explanation of the evolution of astronomy and, especially, the social context for that evolution. Carl Sagan is by far the best science popularizer of the past century.
* Spacecraft missions to nearby planets * The Library of ancient Alexandria * The human brain * Egyptian hieroglyphics * The origin of life * The death of the sun * The evolution of galaxies * The origins of matter, suns and worlds
The story of fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution transforming matter and life into consciousness, of how science and civilisation grew up together, and of the forces and individuals who helped shape modern science. A story told with Carl Sagan's remarkable ability to make scientific ideas both comprehensible and exciting.
Forthcoming eclipses coming up in Australia include that of 22 July 2028, which will cross Australia from the Northern Territory to Sydney, home of the internationally famous sights of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Eclipse Chasers will act as a guidebook for both locals and international visitors, giving…
I volunteered at my local library in small-town North Carolina from a very young age. One day I picked up Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, cementing my love of science. Sagan’s explanation that we’re all just a speck on the pale blue dot called Earth spoke to me and made me curious to know more. I begged my parents to let me go to Space Camp in Alabama and I went to North Carolina Governor’s School for Physics. I didn’t pursue a scientific career but I always retained my love of science. When I finally became an author in my 40s, I knew I would someday write a sci-fi time travel romance—eventually, A Paradox of Fates was born.
The first book in this series takes us on a thrilling ride in a post-apocalyptic world. The romance is steamy, so if that’s not your thing, no worries, but I love a good spicy romance so I thoroughly enjoyed this entire series. Rocha does a great job of balancing the sci-fi elements along with the romance, satisfying my love of both science and romance!
All Noelle Cunningham has ever wanted was a life beyond--beyond her stifling role as a prim and proper councilman’s daughter, and beyond the walls of the patriarchal city of Eden, the only remnants of safety in a world destroyed by solar storms decades earlier. But when she’s banished for violating the prohibition against immorality, she’s unprepared for the lawless world outside the city’s walls.
The sectors surrounding Eden house those abandoned to fend for themselves--men like Jasper McCray, bootlegger and cage fighter. Jas clawed his way up from nothing to stand at…
I’m an author who grew up reading books with supernatural elements, whether it was a version of this world (paranormal fantasy) or other worlds (fantasy). I’m always looking for fantasy elements mixed with romance, so it’s not a huge surprise that I wrote in the genre. I went to Seton Hill University to get my Master’s in Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction and am a USA Today Best-selling author. Books and reading (and writing!) are my passions, and I hope you enjoy this list of books I’ve reread countless times.
Chronicles of the One starts with this book, and it is a wild ride. It’s postapocalyptic but with a supernatural edge to it. There’s a plague that sweeps the world, but most of the ones left standing after it have some supernatural abilities. It becomes a war to save the world, waged between the supernaturals and the normal humans.
There’s romance—because Nora Roberts is the queen of romance—battles, and a nice HEA (happily ever after) at the end. This whole series is a do-not-miss page-turner.
A stunning new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts―Year One is an epic of hope and horror, chaos and magick, and a journey that will unite a desperate group of people to fight the battle of their lives…
It began on New Year’s Eve.
The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed―and more than half of the world’s population was decimated.
Forthcoming eclipses coming up in Australia include that of 22 July 2028, which will cross Australia from the Northern Territory to Sydney, home of the internationally famous sights of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Eclipse Chasers will act as a guidebook for both locals and international visitors, giving…
I volunteered at my local library in small-town North Carolina from a very young age. One day I picked up Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, cementing my love of science. Sagan’s explanation that we’re all just a speck on the pale blue dot called Earth spoke to me and made me curious to know more. I begged my parents to let me go to Space Camp in Alabama and I went to North Carolina Governor’s School for Physics. I didn’t pursue a scientific career but I always retained my love of science. When I finally became an author in my 40s, I knew I would someday write a sci-fi time travel romance—eventually, A Paradox of Fates was born.
When I was researching time travel theories for A Paradox of Fates, I dove into this book and fell in love with Kaku’s writing all over again. I’d read him previously, and he does a great job at explaining high-concept science at a common-sense level. This is a fantastic book for anyone curious about physics where understanding seems just out of reach.
From cyborgs, starships, UFOs, aliens and antimatter to telepathy, invisibility, psychokinesis and precognition, Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible is an exciting look at how science fiction could soon become science fact.
Albert Einstein said, 'If at first an idea does not sound absurd, there is no hope for it.' Physics of the Impossible shows how our most far-fetched ideas today - from Star Trek's phasers and teleportation to time travel as envisioned by Back to the Future - are destined to become tomorrow's reality.
Michio Kaku, bestselling science author and one of the world's most acclaimed physicists, looks at…
I have been pursuing nuclear and particle physics as a career for nearly half a century, mostly in Western countries and Japan. As a professor of physics and engineering physics, I always strive to bring conceptual clarity to what I teach for application-oriented and abstract physics, even when I cannot bring the same level of connection to physical reality in my research. I am deeply concerned that physicists have gone astray in their mathematical quest to develop a glamorous picture of the building blocks of matter and the basic interactions among them. This book is an outgrowth of my search to understand the limits of human knowledge to unravel nature’s mysteries.
Professor Rothman, a historian of Science, presents the little-known fact that Kepler’s search for harmony in astronomy has deep connections to the search for harmony in the European community of his time. In less than 400 pages, Professor Rothman takes us on an educational tour of Kepler’s evolution of his ideas of cosmic harmony and his professing those ideas for harmony in an inclusive, diverse society.
There are many untold stories and circumstances that drive a person to pursue a path of discovery or innovation, making them immortal. Kepler was the main player in laying the firm foundation of the heliocentric solar system. It is fascinating to learn that the world politics of his day were contributing factors in this regard.
A committed Lutheran excommunicated from his own church, a friend to Catholics and Calvinists alike, a layman who called himself a "priest of God," a Copernican in a world where Ptolemy still reigned, a man who argued at the same time for the superiority of one truth and the need for many truths to coexist German astronomer Johannes Kepler was, to say the least, a complicated figure. With The Pursuit of Harmony, Aviva Rothman offers a new view of him and his achievements, one that presents them as a story of Kepler's attempts to bring different, even opposing ideas and…
I’m a research physicist working in fusion energy and astrophysics. To explain our work, I’ve had to overcome the misconceptions about science that are widespread in the media and among the general population. These books are the best ones I know to correct the mystification of science, especially of topics like quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and cosmology.
This groundbreaking work, published posthumously, is the first attempt to explain consciousness as the product of the evolutionary process. In doing this, Teilhard de Chardin outlines many characteristics of the evolutionary process that have never been described before. It is his effort to unite evolutionary theory, a Marxist view of evolution, and….Christianity.
The final chapter trying to drag Christ into this scientific work did not impress me, but it does not detract from the earlier chapters either.
Visionary theologian and evolutionary theorist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin applied his whole life, his tremendous intellect, and his great spiritual faith to building a philosophy that would reconcile religion with the scientific theory of evolution. In this timeless book, which contains the quintessence of his thought, Teilhard argues that just as living organisms sprung from inorganic matter and evolved into ever more complex thinking beings, humans are evolving toward an "omega point"—defined by Teilhard as a convergence with the Divine.
I was raised in a rural Baptist parsonage. My family gathered daily for prayer and Bible reading. I learned the story of Adam & Eve before I could read. I encountered evolution in books by evangelical authors who attacked it, vilifying both Darwin and the scientific community. I attended an evangelical college, planning to join the anti-evolution crusade. As I studied science, I came to realize, much to my consternation, that I had been completely wrong about evolution, Darwin, cosmology, and a host of other things. My personal journey was a microcosm of the intellectual upheaval of the last two centuries—a transformation I find exciting.
Faith journeys fascinate me. I love the dramatic tales of how we come to religious faith, or more commonly today, how we lose that faith. Our individual stories of loss are microcosms of the 19th-century loss of faith, which saw so many Europeans lose their belief in God but not their need for something transcendent to ground their understanding of reality.
I love the way A.N. Wilson tells this story as a sobering tale of loss rather than liberation. He dispels the notion that external forces like science are the full or even most important part of the story. Biblical scholarship was casting doubt on the veracity of the Bible long before Darwin challenged Genesis with his theory of evolution.
A magisterial, colorful narrative illuminating the central tragedy of the nineteenth century: that God (or man's faith in him) died, but the need to worship remained as a torment to those who thought they had buried Him. By the end of the nineteenth century, almost all the great writers, artists, and intellectuals had abandoned Christianity, and many abandoned belief in God altogether. This was partly the result of scientific discovery, particularly the work of Charles Darwin in The Origin of Species. (No reader here will soon forget the venomous Oxford debate between Thomas Huxley, brilliant defender of Darwin, and Bishop…
I am a Jesus-loving coral nerd with a passion for helping people learn science accurately, represent Jesus fully, and engage in conversations respectfully. Having previously worked as a coral biologist for the US National Park Service, I have an MS in marine biology and ecology from James Cook University (Australia), a BS in ecology from Seattle Pacific University (USA), and a certification in biblical studies from Bodenseehof Bible School (Germany). When not diving or writing, you can find me reading C.S. Lewis, growing wildflowers, and hosting faith and science conversations on Instagram (@shorelinesoul) or at rachelgjordan.com.
My favorite professor once told me that this book is an essential staple of any respectable ecologist’s bookshelf. And after savoring it for myself (and re-reading it many times since), I couldn’t agree more. Since being penned by a conservation writer exploring his home farm, this environmental classic has contributed significantly to the foundation of modern stewardship narratives.
The book brims with short chapters that read less like ecological essays and more like diary entries overflowing with intellectual depth and nature-loving philosophy. Through artistic prose, you’ll accompany the author as he listens to early morning birdsongs, goes fishing for wild trout, studies roadside plants, follows tracks by a river, and chops trees for firewood.
After pondering these humble practices, you’ll see even the most mundane garden weeds with wonder-filled eyes.
First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land.Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a…
As a boy, I loved reading about science and technology and became a physicist. To my surprise, I found myself increasingly drawn to studying the history of science and philosophy of science, which attempts to understand how and why science “works.” I resigned from my job as a physicist and devoted myself to full-time graduate study in this field, enjoying every moment of it. I began a forty-nine-year academic career—the last thirty-nine at Lehigh University—teaching courses of my own design in the history and philosophy of science and also in how science, technology, and society mutually influence one another. I can honestly say that I remain excited even now about attempting to understand how scientific knowledge impacts society.
I love reading books on the history of science in its social and cultural context if they are well-written and the author is truly knowledgeable. In my opinion, no one alive does this better than Stephen Gaukroger. This first of the four volumes Gaukroger has written on this subject covers the Medieval and Renaissance run-up to modern science and is my favorite, though the other three are equally excellent.
I like how Gaukroger traces the emergence of modern science from the philosophical ideas of St. Augustine through the creation of the universities and Renaissance magical philosophy to the creation of a materialistic, mathematics—and experiment-based science of nature. I cannot fault either the writing or the scholarship.
Why did science emerge in the West and how did scientific values come to be regarded as the yardstick for all other forms of knowledge? Stephen Gaukroger shows just how bitterly the cognitive and cultural standing of science was contested in its early development. Rejecting the traditional picture of secularization, he argues that science in the seventeenth century emerged not in opposition to religion but rather was in many respects driven by it. Moreover, science did not present a unified picture of nature but was an unstable field of different, often locally successful but just as often incompatible, programmes. To…
Raised in an atheist family, I came to faith in Christ in middle age and am now devoted to spreading the Gospel. I am a PhD biochemist and the author of the award-winning The Works of His Hands: A Scientist’s Journey from Atheism to Faith. I was a professor at three major universities and held leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. I have published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, as well as articles on science and faith. I serve as the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly magazine God and Nature. My passion is to proclaim the harmony between science and Christianity.
Michael Guillen, a well-known science reporter and broadcast journalist, has published an exciting and easily understood book about how science, especially physics, supports the idea of a divine creator of the universe.
Guillen, a former atheist and skeptic of Christianity, found his worldview turned around by his scientific studies.
This book is beautifully written and absolutely accessible to everyone, including those with no training in physics or other sciences.
The author describes his own journey to faith through his science and answers all the questions a reader might have about the truth of the evidence. His faith shines through all the pages of this book and it is a must read for anyone interested in the harmony of science and Christian faith.
Is your worldview enlightened enough to accommodate both science and God at the same time?
Dr. Michael Guillen, a best-selling author, Emmy award–winning journalist and former physics instructor at Harvard, used to be an Atheist―until science changed his mind. Once of the opinion that people of faith are weak, small-minded folks who just don't understand science, Dr. Guillen ultimately concluded that not only does science itself depend on faith, but faith is actually the mightiest power in the universe.
In Believing Is Seeing, Dr. Guillen recounts the fascinating story of his journey from Atheism to Christianity, pulling back the curtain…
