Isaac Asimov's 21st Century Library of the Universe draws upon the legendary writer's wit, clarity of style, enthusiasm, and enormous command of facts about space to give youngsters the most current information about the wonders of the universe. In twelve volumes Asimov takes young astronomers on a tour of the Solar System—proceeding step by step from the Sun at the center of it all to the distant outer orbit of Pluto. In between he covers all the interior planets, including our own Moon and the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars.

Now available: Earth, Venus and Jupiter.

Janet Jeppson Asimov
Isaac Asimov: It’s Been a Good Life
Prometheus Books, 2002, ISBN: 1-57392-968-9, $26

As one of the most gifted and prolific writers of the twentieth century, Isaac Asimov became legendary for his inexhaustible creativity, wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, and talent for explaining complex subjects in clear, concise prose. While regaling his readers with an incredible opus of almost five hundred entertaining and illuminating science fiction and nonfiction books, he also found time to write a three-volume autobiography. Now these volumes have been condensed into one by Asimov’s wife, Janet, who also shares excerpts from letters he wrote to her. Together these writings provide an intimate portrait of a creative genius whose love of learning and playing with ideas is evident on every page.

Although Janet Jeppson Asimov concludes this work with a shocking revelation about her husband’s death, the volume is clearly intended as a celebration — as the title suggests — of a wonderful, creative life. As a poignant coda to this work, Janet has appended one short story that was Isaac’s favorite, and his 400th essay on this thoughts about science.

Isaac Asimov's 21st Century Library of the Universe—The Solar System With revisions and updating by Richard Hantula
Prometheus Books, 2003, $12 each volume

The Sun ISBN: 1-59102-122-7	The Moon ISBN: 1-59102-123-5	Mars ISBN: 1-59102-124-3

Isaac Asimov's 21st Century Library of the Universe draws upon the legendary writer's wit, clarity of style, enthusiasm, and enormous command of facts about space to give youngsters the most current information about the wonders of the universe. In twelve volumes Asimov takes young astronomers on a tour of the Solar System—proceeding step by step from the Sun at the center of it all to the distant outer orbit of Pluto. In between he covers all the interior planets, including our own Moon and the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars.

top

J

James R. Voelkel
Johannes Kepler and the New Astronomy
Oxford Portraits in Science
Oxford University Press), 2001, ISBN: 0-19-515021-X, $11.95 (now available in paperback)

This latest volume in the Oxford Portraits in Science is the story of a young man who falls into his profession through a sense of duty - yet sets the scientific community into a frenzy. Voelkel reveals how Kepler, after years of studying theology, would go on to make fundamental astronomical discoveries in spite of religious upheaval and persecution, scholarly rivalry and intrigue, war, family tragedies and a witchcraft trial. Sidebars explain Copernicus’s Mode of Retrograde Motion, The Platonic Solids, Tycho Brahe’s Uraniborg Observatory, and Kepler’s Three Laws of Planetary Motion.

Jack B. Zirker
Journey from the Center of the Sun
Princeton University Press, 2002, 0-691-05781-8, $29.95

Jack Zirker takes us on an imaginary voyage from the center of the sun to its surface, showing how sunlight is made and finally following the sun's energy to the far reaches of the solar system. Along the way, he introduces the basic processes at work in our nearest star and the exciting answers solar scientists are finding to problems that have long perplexed astronomers.

Journey from the Center of the Sun describes how theory and practice are coming together to provide a new understanding of this old star. At this moment, solar physicists are collecting the best observations ever obtained about the sun's interior and dynamic atmosphere, while a new breed of theorists is interpreting these data using computer simulations. Zirker reports on cutting-edge advances and looks at the tough questions solar physicists are beginning to crack. How can we account for the solar wind that causes the sun to lose mass at an astonishing rate? Where have all the neutrinos gone? How does the sun generate magnetic sunspots, and why does it have a sunspot cycle? What causes a solar flare to explode? How does the sun affect the earth's climate? What is a sunquake?

top

K

George G. Szpiro
Kepler's Conjecture: How Some of the Greatest Minds in History Helped Solve One of the Oldest Math Problems in the World
John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN: 0-471-08601-0, $24.95

Sir Walter Raleigh simply wanted to know the best and most efficient way to pack cannonballs in the hold of his ship. In 1611, German astronomer Johannes Kepler responded with the obvious answer: by piling them up the same way that grocers stack oranges or melons. For the next four centuries, Kepler's conjecture became the figurative loose cannon in the mathematical world as some of the greatest intellects in history set out to prove his theory òÀÔ from Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to math greats Sir Isaac Newton and Carl Friedrich Gauss, from modern titans David Hilbert and Buckminster Fuller to Thomas Hales of the University of Michigan, who in 1998 submitted what seems to be the definitive proof. Kepler's Conjecture provides a mesmerizing account of this 400-year quest for an answer that would satisfy even the most skeptical mathematical minds.

Rhonda Martens
Kepler’s Philosophy & the New Astronomy
Princeton University Press, 2000, ISBN: 0-691-05069-4, $37.50

Johannes Kepler changed the face of astronomy by abandoning principles that had been in place for two millennia, made important discoveries in optics and mathematics, and was an uncommonly good philosopher. Generally, however, Kepler's philosophical ideas have been dismissed as irrelevant and even detrimental to his legacy of scientific accomplishment. Here, Rhonda Martens offers the first extended study of Kepler’s philosophical views and shows how those views helped him construct and justify the new astronomy. By tracing the evolution of Kepler's thought in his astronomical, metaphysical, and epistemological works, Martens explores the complex interplay between changes in his philosophical views and the status of his astronomical discoveries.

Jane Drake & Ann Love, illustrated by Heather Collins
The Kids Book of the Night Sky
Kids Can Press, 2004, ISBN: 1-55337-128-3, $12.95 (paperback)

In The Kids Book of the Night Sky, boys and girls will discover all the secrets the night sky holds. They can play games like "Night Sky I Spy," keep an astronomer's log, read about night sky myths and  legends from different cultures around the world, and learn about the zodiac, he northern lights and eclipses. Star maps are included for each season—so kids will know what to look for, when and where. Then as the sun goes down and the sky goes dark, they'll be ready for the night sky's all-star show! Available at the ASP's online store, the AstroShop.

Bryan Bunch
The Kingdom of Infinite Number: A Field Guide
W. H. Freeman and Company, 2001, ISBN: 0-7167-4447-3, $13.95 (paperback)

From the Introduction: "The intent of this field guide is to aid the reader in identifying numbers in their native habitats. Just as an experienced birder can tell which birds are hidden in the trees by hearing their songs, or recognize a species from a silhouette or a flash of color through the leaves, the experienced number-watcher learns to find the hidden secrets of numbers, to classify a number instantly, and to use number relationships to enhance the enjoyment of mathematics as well as to solve problems...All numbers are interesting."

Alexei Sossinsky
Knots: Mathematics with a Twist
Harvard University Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-674-00944-4, $24.95

Ornaments and icons, symbols of complexity or evil, aesthetically appealing and endlessly useful in everyday ways, knots are also the object of mathematical theory, used to unravel ideas about the topological nature of space. In recent years knot theory has been brought to bear on the study of equations describing weather systems, mathematical models used in physics, and even, with the realization that DNA sometimes is knotted, molecular biology.

This book, written by a mathematician known for his own work on knot theory, is a clear, concise, and engaging introduction to this complicated subject. A guide to the basic ideas and applications of knot theory, Knots takes us from Lord Kelvin's early -- and mistaken -- idea of using the knot to model the atom, almost a century and a half ago, to the central problem confronting knot theorists today: distinguishing among various knots, classifying them, and finding a straightforward and general way of determining whether two knots --treated as mathematical objects -- are equal.

top

L

Michael Christopher Carroll
Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government's Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory
William Morrow, ISBN: 0-06-001141-6, $24.95

Nestled near the Hamptons, the fashionable summer playground of America's rich and famous, and in the shadow of New York City, lies an unimposing 840-acre island unidentified on most maps. On the few on which it can be found, Plum Island is marked red or yellow, and stamped U.S. government—restricted or dangerous animal diseases. Lab 257 details the checkered history of Plum Island, positing that the seemingly bucolic island on the edge of the largest population center in the United States may be a ticking biological time bomb.

George H. Rieke
The Last of the Great Observatories: Spitzer and the Era of Faster, Better, Cheaper at NASA
University of Arizona Press, 2006, ISBN: 0-8165-2522-6, $40

The Spitzer Space Observatory, originally known as the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), is the last of the four "Great Observatories", which also include the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Developed over twenty years and dubbed the "Infrared Hubble", Spitzer was launched in the summer of 2003 and has since contributed significantly to our understanding of the universe. George Rieke played a key role in Spitzer and now relates the story of how that observatory was built and launched into space. Telling the story of this single mission within the context of NASA space science over two turbulent decades, he describes how, after a tortuous political trail to approval, Spitzer was started at the peak of NASA's experiment with streamlining and downsizing its mission development process, termed "faster better cheaper." Rieke examines in detail the premises behind "faster better cheaper," their strengths and weaknesses, and their ultimate impact within the context of NASA's continuing search for the best way to build future missions. As the only book devoted to the Spitzer mission, The Last of the Great Observatories is a story at the nexus of politics and science, shedding new light on both spheres as it contemplates the future of mankind's exploration of the universe.

Bill Carter and Merri Sue Carter
Latitude: How American Astronomers Solved the Mystery of Variation
Naval Institute Press, 2002, ISBN: 1557500169, $24.95

For more than a century European astronomers grappled with the mystery surrounding a suspected variation in latitude that affected their careful observations. Where the best minds in Europe had failed, in1891, Seth Chandler, an actuary for a Boston insurance company with no formal education in astronomy, built an inexpensive instrument that solved the problem. Another American, Simon Newcomb, working at the U.S. Naval Observatory and using existing mathematical equations, validated Chandler’s discovery. The "Chandler Wobble," had profound significance to astronomers of the day and played an important role later in space exploration and the eventual development of the Global Positioning System. Private correspondence, documents, and photographs provided by Chandler’s granddaughter give a glimpse of life within the family and of Chandler’s relationships with the scientific community.

Robert Zimmerman
Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel
Joseph Henry Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-309-08548-9, $27.95

In this definitive account of man's quest to shoot for the moon...and beyond, space historian Zimmerman details the adventure, exploration, research and discovery of the world's first space cowboys and reminds us why courageous astronauts continue taking these daring flights. All against a background of the great global Cold War gamesmanship between Russian and American political leaders that drove us to the stars.

Dava Sobel
Letters to Father: Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo, 1623-1633
Walker & Company, 2001, ISBN: 0-8027-1387-4, $40
(All proceeds will be donated by Dava Sobel and Walker & Company to Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clares, the order Suor Maria Celeste belonged to)

Two years ago, Dava Sobel introduced Suor Maria Celeste, the eldest daughter of Galileo Galilei’s three illegitimate children, in Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love. In Letters to Father, all 124 existing letters she wrote to her father are reproduced in their original Italian alongside Sobel’s English translation. Introduced and annotated by Sobel, the letters provide a portrait of deep love between a father and his daughter and a fascinating insight into Galileo himself. They also touch on the events of the dramatic period through which she lived during which a pope came to power who battled the Protestant Reformation; the Thirty Years’ War embroiled all of Europe; the bubonic plague erupted across Italy; and a new philosophy of science, promulgated most forcefully by Galileo himself, threatened to overturn the order of the universe.

David Wade
Li: Dynamic Form in Nature
Walker Books, 2003, ISBN: 0-8027-1410-2

The study of families of surface patterns was known in ancient China as Li and is the sister science to Fen Shui. In this unique book are sand and wave patterns, big cat markings, bark and leaf designs, soap and marbling swirls, crystalline and rock forms, tree branching types, and many other examples of nature's dynamic, sometimes enigmatic designs.

Peter D. Ward & Don Brownlee
The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of Our World
Times Books (Henry Holt & Co.), 2003, ISBN: 0-8050-6781-7, $25

Imagine our planet far into the future, Carl Sagan's "pale blue dot" reduced to a reddish-brown husk, a mere shell of its former self. It seems like the stuff of science fiction novels, but it is really of science today. We are at a unique moment in our historyòÀÔEarth's midlifeòÀÔa point at which science has given us the capability to examine the birth of our planet as well as the forces that will bring about its eventual death.

Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee, a paleontologist and an astronomer respectively, combine the discoveries of astronomers, Earth scientists, and those in other specific disciplines. Astronomers are well-poised to study the ends of other worlds, while paleontologists can tell us about "worlds" that have already ended on our planet, such as the death of dinosaurs and other signposts in the rock and fossil record.

Ward and Brownlee present a comprehensive portrait of Earth's ultimate fate, allowing us to understand and appreciate how our planet sustains itself, and offer a glimpse at our place in the cosmic order. As they depict the process of planetary evolution, they peer deep into the future destiny of Earth, showing us that we are living near or shortly after Earth's biological peak. Eventually, the process of planetary evolution will reverse itself; life as we know it will subside until only the simplest forms remain. In time they, too, will disappear. The oceans will evaporate, the atmosphere will degrade, and as the sun slowly expands, Earth will eventually meet a fiery end.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is crucial to understand Earth's tumultuous history and probable future. Combining groundbreaking research with lucid, eloquent writing, this landmark book offers fresh and realistic insight into the true nature of our world and how we should best steward our planet for the long-term benefit of our species.

William Tobin
The Life and Science of Léon Foucault: The Man Who Proved the Earth Rotates
Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN: 0-521-80855-3, $60