The Friendly Guide to the Universe: A Down-To-Earth Tour of Space, Time and the Wonders of the Cosmos (The Friendly Shakespeare)

Rating:
Summary: Good for astronomers (and others, too)
Review: A Friendly Guide is fabulous! I have read it several times in the several years that I've owned it (and I rarely read anything I don't have to!). Nancy Hathaway devides and subdevides astronomy into small enough bits and mixes enough wit to make it easier to understand for those who don't know much astronomy. The small subsections also make it possible to read for us who do know something about astronomy but are pressed for time.

Rating:
Summary: Easy-to-understand and informative
Review: I picked this one up on the strength of the previous "Friendly Guide" (The Friendly Guide to Shakespeare), and was not disappointed. While Hathaway's book is ostensibly about the universe, and does contain quite a bit of information about the subject, a better description might be "Lives of the Astronomers." From Copernicus to Hawking, Hathaway tours the universe by taking a time trip through the many advances of astronomy. Like the guide to Shakespeare, the chapters are short, and sidebars abound. I spent about three months working my way through the book, reading a section or two a night. While it isn't a substitute for Astronomy 301 (the math quotient was thankfully low), this is a nice book for those of us who like to know a little about a lot.

Rating:
Summary: A REAL hitchhiker's guide!
Review: What a great book for anyone that has even the slightest interest in space, physics, or just how in the heck everything got here! She takes difficult subjects and breaks them down into interesting "fun facts" that anyone can appreciate and understand. It's simply impossible to not share something out of this book if someone else is in the room while you're reading it!