Brian May (1) (1947–)

Pareidolia in the milky way
Like reading an encyclopaedia, this book, beautifully illustrated, bombards you with facts from start to end, from Earth, to the end of the known universe. I enjoyed the style of writing which felt like chatting, using colloquial terms such as the jewelled handle and the straight wall, for places on the moon. Although 13 years out of date (eg Saturn had 62 confirmed satellites in 2012, now has 146 in 2025), this actually makes the book fun to find out the progress show more of space exploration. I was particularly interested in NASA's DART mission (that was completed in 2024), in the book it is named the European Don Quixote mission. show less

Yes, there is a faint whiff of cheese about this book, but perhaps that's unavoidable, considering that a good part of the target market is made up of nostalgiacs. Despite that, it's a terrific book, filled with stereographs that literally leap off the page at you when viewed with the enclosed viewer -- which also works just fine with any old stereocards you might have lying around in the attic. T.R. Williams was a commercial photographer who flourished at just the time (1850's) that 3-d show more photography became a craze, due to Victoria and Albert's endorsement at the Great Exhibition. One of his special projects was to document his little home town, Hinton Waldrist. Some 150 years later, the fruits of his labors have been brought to you and me by Queen's bassist, Brian May. It's a weird old world, isn't it? show less

I always find it exciting when I finish a reading a book with understanding a little bit more, here it’s how physics, and the other sciences, are part of the story of when the Universe began.

As I was reading this, I kept thinking, ‘really’, ‘wow!!’, or ‘that makes a little more sense to me now’.

And it was magical to finally grasp how the planets and stars came about.

The other books I’ve read so far didn’t give me as much of the foundation (to continue building on) I needed show more (in a way that I see and understand things). Having grasped a little bit more, I feel more confident to go back to those books and get more from them, but before I do this, I want to read [A Briefer History of Time], the book I’ve been wanting to read for so long and looked super-intimidating but now, less so after reading this one. show less

An extraordinary book, part stereoscopic adventure, part love song to a bygone Britain, this is far and away the most engaging volume in the history of photography, and of everyday life in the mid-nineteenth century I have ever seen. The stereo viewer is superlative, period-imbued, and foldable, and each frame is a paean to the strange presence of the 3D past. An added bonus is a bio of the photographer, with viewable stereos of the Crystal Palace in both its Hyde Park and Sydenham incarnations.