Trade Books for Courses :: Trade Books For Courses: Science Astronomy Books

Hardcover :
$25.00 Buy

The Matchbox That Ate a Forty-Ton Truck

What Everyday Things Tell Us About the Universe

Marcus Chown Faber and Faber, Inc.

"Why can't a broken teacup reassemble itself? How do stars turn hydrogen into iron? This lively, nontechnical look at the physics behind the world around us is rich with entertaining anecdotes and examples of some pretty complex ideas. Caltech astronomer Chown (The Quantum Zoo) uses simple examples from everyday life—a reflection on a windowpane, the solidity of the ground underfoot, the heat of our sun, the immense variety of objects in the world—to reveal evidence of everything from the Big Bang to the life cycle of stars and the inner structure of the atom. Skillful explanations are leavened with humor. Invocations of pop culture and literary references, from Homer Simpson and Walt Whitman to Edgar Allan Poe and Douglas Adams, help introduce each complex idea and enhance the discussion. Chapter notes and a comprehensive glossary offer additional information. Both deliberate readers and those who like to jump into things at random will be entertained and informed by this charming book."—Publishers Weekly

Trade Paperback :
$14.99 Buy

Before the Big Bang

The Prehistory of the Universe

Brian Clegg St. Martin's Griffin

"Indeed, the existence of so many things, from dark matter to black holes to wormholes all has to be inferred. The Big Bang, too, is only provisional and seems to be waiting for a more graceful model to replace it. In Clegg’s words, the Big Bang theory 'has the feeling of something held together with a Band-Aid.' Whether what came before our universe was another universe or nothing, or something else yet unconsidered, for now the most accurate answer might be: We just don’t know."—Anthony Doerr, The Boston Globe

Trade Paperback : $6.95 Buy	Stars A Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press Herbert S. Zim, Ph.D., Sc.D. and Robert H. Baker, Ph.D., D.Sc., Revised and Updated by Mark R. Chartrand, Ph.D.; Illustrated by James Gordon Irving Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press have been updated and revised to revitalize the complete line of guides for a new generation of students.

Trade Paperback : $17.00 Buy	Red Moon Rising Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age Matthew Brzezinski Holt Paperbacks “In his exuberant narrative of the superpower space race . . . [Brzezinski] tells the story of American and Soviet decisions with remarkable dramatic—even...

Trade Paperback : $6.95 Buy	Planets A Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press Mark R. Chartrand, Ph.D.; Illustrated by Ron Miller Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press have been updated and revised to revitalize the complete line of guides for a new generation of students.

Trade Paperback :
$14.95 Buy

Night Sky

A Guide To Field Identification

Golden Field Guide from St. Martin's Press

Mark R. Chartrand, Senior Vice President, National Space Society; Illustrated by Helmut K. Wimmer Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press

Golden Field Guides from St. Martin's Press are the leading nature guides for the classroom. Thorough and authoritative, they are also compact and lightweight, designed for portability and easy access.

Trade Paperback : $16.00 Buy	Carrying the Fire An Astronaut's Journeys Michael Collins; Foreword by Charles A. Lindbergh Farrar, Straus and Giroux Paperbacks The years that have passed since Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins piloted the Apollo 11 spacecraft to the moon in July 1969 have done nothing...

Trade Paperback : $15.99 Buy	What If the Earth Had Two Moons? Neil F. Comins St. Martin's Griffin “What if?” questions have always stimulated people to think in new ways. What if the Earth Had Two Moons leads us on a fascinating 10 world journey exploring...

Hardcover : $10.00 Buy	Stonehenge Wooden Books Robin Heath Walker & Company Once part of a large culture of stone circles, Stonehenge—built around 3000 B.C. and developed over the next 1,500 years—is the most famous. The remains of a...

Hardcover : $12.00 Buy	Sun, Moon and Earth Wooden Books Robin Heath Walker & Company Every organism on Earth responds to four major cycles: the solar and lunar day, the synodic month and the year. We all dance to these primary rhythms. This...

Trade Paperback : $13.00 Buy	Astro Turf The Private Life of Rocket Science M.G. Lord Walker & Company "Astro Turf works well as a brief, clear history of a field and the lab that embodied it. It works even better as a piece of cultural criticism. [It] works best of all, though, as a moving memoir of the difficult love between a daughter and father."—*The New York Times Book Review*

Hardcover : $12.00 Buy	Sacred Number The Secret Quality of Quantities Wooden Books Miranda Lundy Walker & Company Numbers permeate every aspect of our lives; very little happens without a basic ability to manipulate the simple whole numbers we all take for granted....

Hardcover : $12.00 Buy	A Little Book of Coincidence Wooden Books John Martineau Walker & Company A most unusual guide to the solar system, A Little Book of Coincidence suggests that there may be fundamental relationships between space, time, and life that...

Trade Paperback : $6.95 Buy	The Sky Observer's Guide A Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press R. Newton Mayall, Margaret Mayall, and Jerome Wyckoff; Paintings and Diagrams by John Polgreen Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press Golden Guides from St. Martin's Press have been updated and revised to revitalize the complete line of guides for a new generation of students.

Trade Paperback :
$19.00 Buy

Mapping Mars

Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World

Oliver Morton Picador

"There is much to recommend this book. The author has an encyclopedic grasp of the development of major discoveries of mars science, and he summaries them in a very understandable way . . . And, I must confess, I am frankly envious of his engaging prose. This book will delight anyone interested in the exploration of the planet next door."—American Scientist

Guardian First Book Award - Nominee - Nominee

Bonus

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Hardcover :
$23.95 Buy

Circumference

Eratosthenes and the Ancient Quest to Measure the Globe

Nicholas Nicastro St. Martin's Press

How do you measure the size of the planet you’re standing on? “Circumference" is the story of what happened when one man asked himself that very question....

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Trade Paperback : $16.00 Buy	An Intimate Look at the Night Sky Chet Raymo Walker & Company On one level, An Intimate Look at the Night Sky is a unique star guide: twenty-four beautiful star maps, created specifically for this book, cycle through the...

Hardcover : $22.95 Buy	Walking Zero Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian Chet Raymo Walker & Company Noted science writer Chet Raymo explores how we found our place in space and time, and what it has meant to humankind. In Walking Zero, Chet Raymo uses the...

Trade Paperback : $19.99 Buy	Two Sides of the Moon Our Story of the Cold War Space Race David Scott and Alexei Leonov; Foreword by Neil Armstrong, Introduction by Tom Hanks St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books “An extraordinary book.” ---Arthur C. Clarke Space was one of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of the Cold War, the Moon its ultimate beachhead. ...

Trade Paperback : $28.00 Buy	The Illustrated Longitude The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Dava Sobel; William J.H. Andrewes Walker & Company A fully illustrated edition of the international best-seller Longitude. The Illustrated Longitude recounts in words and images the epic quest to solve the...

Trade Paperback : $14.00 Buy	Longitude The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time Dava Sobel Walker & Company "As much a tale of intrigue as it is of science . . . A book full of gems for anyone interested in history, geography, astronomy, navigation, clock making, and—not the least—plain old human ambition and greed."—The Philadelphia Inquirer

Hardcover : $25.00 Buy	A More Perfect Heaven How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos Dava Sobel Walker & Company By 1514, the reclusive cleric Nicolaus Copernicus had written and hand-copied an initial outline of his heliocentric theory-in which he defied common sense and...

Trade Paperback : $17.00 Buy	Galileo's Daughter A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love Dava Sobel Walker & Company Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of his daughter Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has crafted a...

Hardcover : $12.00 Buy	The Mayan and Other Ancient Calendars Wooden Books Geoff Stray Walker & Company The only small, popular book on the important subject of ancient calendars. The study of heavenly cycles is common to most ancient cultures. The ancient...