Exploring the Universe

Apologies to anyone who thinks my books are turning up rather too thick and fast this year - but I've got another one out! (It will be a bumper year: there are three more due out in the next six months.) On the other hand, it's very different from anything else I've done.

Exploring the Universe is a book of striking photographs in an exploration of astronomy and cosmology. It's a sort of manageable coffee table book - big enough for the photos to be impressive, but small enough to be able to read with your wrists falling off.

That reading part is important because although the pictures (around 100 of them) are a significant component of this book it was really important for me that the text was both readable and had plenty to say. I think a real danger with this kind of book is that they can be just a collection of pictures with some hastily assembled text. In this case I've tried to make sure that the text packs in plenty of fascinating information.

So, for example, while I hugely recommend the iPad Solar System app which inevitably is driven by the graphics, the book version of it was a bit of a let down, because the text is too bitty. In my tour through the universe, the text came first - and it flows through the book, rather than being a set of tiny standalone articles.

I ought to explain one thing - the title. It might sound like a book on space exploration, but I wanted to make the point that our main vehicle for exploring the universe is light, not spacecraft. Going out and experiencing things close up is never going to be an option for most of the universe. We have to rely on light in all its forms to enable us to find our way around our remarkable universal environment.

Take a look at the book's web page to find out more or buy a copy.

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