• The best books on Exoplanets - The Little Book of Exoplanets by Joshua Winn
  • The best books on Exoplanets - Envisioning Exoplanets: Searching for Life in the Galaxy by Michael Carroll
  • The best books on Exoplanets - Imagined Life: A Speculative Scientific Journey among the Exoplanets in Search of Intelligent Aliens, Ice Creatures, and Supergravity Animals by James Trefil & Michael Summers
  • The best books on Exoplanets - The Planet Factory by Elizabeth Tasker
  • The best books on Exoplanets - Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H Knoll

The best books on Exoplanets, recommended by Chris Impey

With 10 billion potentially habitable worlds in our galaxy and 100 billion galaxies in the universe, the probability there is life beyond Earth is high. We’re also likely to find out more in the next five to seven years, says Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and author of Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity. Here, he recommends four brilliant books about exoplanets as well as one about life on Earth, our only example of biology to date.

  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Galileo’s Telescope: A European Story by Franco Giudice, Massimo Bucciantini and Michele Camerota, translated by Catherine Bolton
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Letters to Father: Sister Maria Celeste to Galileo by Suor Maria Celeste (Virginia Galilei) and Dava Sobel (editor and translator)
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair by Maurice A. Finocchiaro
  • The best books on Galileo Galilei - Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei & Stillman Drake (trans.)

The best books on Galileo Galilei, recommended by Paula Findlen

The trial of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition was one of the most public confrontations between the new science emerging in the 17th century and the Catholic Church but, nearly 400 years later, there’s still a lot of scope to argue what it was about. Here historian of science Paula Findlen, a professor at Stanford University, explains the endless fascination of Galileo Galilei, the Renaissance man who turned a telescope to the sky and took the world by storm, and recommends the best books to start learning more about him.

  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - The First Three Minutes by Steven Weinberg
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean M Carroll
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
  • The Best Books on the Big Bang - Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip S Thorne

The Best Books on the Big Bang, recommended by Dan Hooper

Before Einstein, how the universe began was a question for theologians, not scientists. Over a century later, we know much more, but not enough to do more than guess at what happened at the moment of the Big Bang and immediately after. Astrophysicist Dan Hooper, author of At the Edge of Timea book that explores dark energy, dark matter and other things we don’t yet understand—talks us through books about the Big Bang, and questions whether our entire understanding of the universe is about to be turned upside down.

  • Books on the Wonders of The Universe - Bang! by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott
  • Books on the Wonders of The Universe - How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
  • Books on the Wonders of The Universe - A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
  • Books on the Wonders of The Universe - Why Does E=mc2? by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw
  • Books on the Wonders of The Universe - The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

Books on the Wonders of The Universe, recommended by Philip Plait

Philip Plait urges us to remember that “science isn’t an encyclopedia of facts to memorise. It’s alive.” The astronomer and author of the acclaimed Bad Astronomy blog discusses books that can’t help but light the fire of interest in all things astronomical. He looks at how we can date the age of the universe, the danger of solar flares, and why Pluto is no longer classed as a planet.