100 Books Like Making Stars Physical

The proverbial scientist at work conjures the image of a solitary investigator bent over a workbench cluttered with arcane instruments nestled among reams of scribbled notes just waiting to be transformed into creative answers to pressing questions about the natural world. The image's simplicity belies the complexity of the process it purports to represent. Adding descriptions of the what, how, and why of scientific inquiry, observation, and analysis still misses a crucial element that makes the improvement, dissemination, and acceptance of new knowledge possible, namely the active behind-the-scenes collaboration between scientists and the illustrators, photographers, printers, and other artisans who use visual representation to shape and successfully communicate that knowledge. 

Mapping the Spectrum is not just an exhaustive and illuminating history of spectrum analysis.  In it, author Klaus Hentschel brilliantly exposes the essential role of visual culture in bringing this all-important tool of modern science to useful life.  He has… show more.

Young people today casually speak of "galaxies far, far away".  They seem to have an intuitive, even if fanciful, understanding that, like science fiction aliens, they and their fellow humans also reside in a galaxy of their own. A mere century ago, such a belief was a matter of highly debatable conjecture. How did earthbound observers learn that the Sun is just one of the hundreds of billions of stars bound gravitationally in a vast spiral-shaped galaxy? 

As Minding the Heavens ably demonstrates, the answer to that question is a long and fascinating story, one that author Leila Belkora vividly recounts using chapter-length biographies of seven astronomers from the 18th to the 20th centuries.  With help from their assistants and family as well as communication with contemporaries, these curiosity-driven individuals endeavored to determine the form and structure of the celestial realm and learn the true nature of the mysterious hazy… show more.

Dava Sobel is the unquestionable queen when it comes to writing the history of women in science. You can’t go wrong in choosing anything she’s written, but I particularly enjoyed this group portrait of the women hired as “human computers” at the Harvard Observatory in the late 1800s to interpret astronomical data and observations collected by the male astronomers.

While some of these women were trained scientists, many were simply wives, sisters, or daughters of the Harvard astronomers. Sobel deftly shows how, when given a chance, women were capable of incredible scientific inquiry. I love all of the vivid scenes Sobel recreates and how she is able to bring these women to life so eloquently. 

Thanks to spectrum analysis, the development of improved photographic capabilities, and the construction of powerful new mountaintop telescopes, early 20th century astronomers were able to ask and seek answers to an entirely new range of intriguing questions about the nature and structure of the celestial realm. But the inability to resolve all nebulae into stars left them with a nagging mystery to untangle:  are these luminous clouds relatively nearby embryonic solar systems, or extremely distant aggregates of countless stars? 

In The Expanding Universe, author Robert Smith ably transforms archival material into a lively narrative of the dramatic twists and turns -- the disappointing failures, dead-ends, careless errors, contentious controversies, welcome surprises, and successes -- of the decades-long international effort to find answers to this perplexing quandary.

Thinking about this book, I’m reminded of the quote “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a phrase originally coined by historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and which is often interpreted to mean that women ought to rebel in order to be remembered – although Ulrich’s original intent was actually to encourage us to appreciate the quiet impact that billions of ordinary women have made upon history.

In The Stargazer’s Sister, Caroline Herschel, the often-ignored sister of famous astronomer William Herschel, is a shy and soft-spoken soul, who starts out assisting with her brother’s work and ends up becoming an accomplished astronomer in her own right.

A beautiful and atmospheric read, this book is a great reminder that women’s contributions to science throughout history often consisted of unglamorous, behind-the-scenes work – but that doesn’t mean that they should be credited any less for their skill and ingenuity! 

Author Emily Levesque seeks out powerful telescopes and the people who run them, looking at the evolution of astronomy from a science based on hands-on observing to one more centered on remote-controlled instruments. In the book, she questions what astronomy may have lost in its shift toward more distanced and abstracted technology—and what sorts of creativity and adventure it could retain if the study of the stars were a little more like it was in centuries past. I enjoyed the hard, but narrative and engaging, look at what professional astronomers gain and lose from the way they look at the stars (and everything else in the sky).

In the late 18th century, European scientists claimed that “the sciences were never at war,” using as an example the international Transit of Venus voyages that took place during the height of the Seven Years’ War.

Even though the two opposing sides–France and Britain–were engaged in one of the bloodiest conflicts of that century, scientists from those two nations, as well as many allied nations on both sides, traveled vast distances across the globe (including Tahiti, South Africa, and Siberia) to witness the two Transits of Venus, 1761 and 1769.

Facing not just war but also fierce cold, disease, and the perils of ocean navigation (see Longitude above), the astronomers combined their observations to give mankind its first glimpse of the enormous scale of our solar system.      

I liked this book because it has a sense of humor and yet approaches interesting questions about how we might meet another species of intelligent life in the universe.

Sawyer is not a scientist, but an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, with training in anthropology and a fascination with the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence, interests that inform many of his novels.

I also enjoyed this novel as a detective mystery with an astronomical puzzle that is part of its solution. 

While researching Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered, I rented an apartment a few blocks from a house where Galileo lived in Florence. I could stand outside its door every day, but this book transported me inside—not just a building but a family, a home, and an era. 

Dava Sobel’s meticulous research reveals not just new dimensions of Galileo’s life and work as an intrepid scientist but the often hidden realm inhabited by his daughter. Illegitimate and unmarriageable, she entered a convent at age 13 to live in poverty and simplicity. And yet, as her letters demonstrate, Sister Marie Celeste’s soul and spirit soared. The ending—which I dare not spoil—has haunted me since my first reading decades ago.

This book does a great job of capturing the wonder of the stars. In lyrical language and with absolutely stunning illustrations, What Miss Mitchell Saw will capture the reader’s interest right from the cover. This picture book biography delves into the early days of one of our most brilliant astronomers, Maria Mitchell. Budding scientists and astronomers alike, or anyone who just likes to wonder about the mysteries of space, will love this book.