What's going on out there? Get the skinny on the Great Beyond with The Scientific American Book of Astronomy. Fifty-four prominent researchers and writers contribute articles on everything from the climate on Mars to the ever-changing theories of dark matter, each in the classic, highly enjoyable Scientific American style. Well- and carefully chosen illustrations guide the reader through the reviews of our understanding of far-out topics, and the authors--David Levy , Shannon Lucid, and Vera Rubin among them--are perfectly suited to presenting their material. Most of the articles are from the last few years of the 1990s, though a few classics reach as far back as 1984. With sections ranging from the tiniest topics ("Rays, Waves, and Particles") to the indescribably large ("The Universe"), the book has everything and all readers should find something engaging within. Reports on the Hubble Space Telescope and Mir provide updates on our search for better tools to probe more deeply, while theoretical articles on black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and more keep us on our toes about what we think we already know.

You don't need expensive instruments to appreciate the beauty of the night sky, as Bob Berman exuberantly demonstrates in Secrets of the Night Sky. Berman takes you on a tour of the night sky, pointing out its highlights and its history, along with a wealth of practical tips and tricks, such as how to categorize satellites that appear overhead. Secrets of the Night Sky is not only a how-to manual for enjoying the celestial sphere but is also a painless introduction to the science of cosmology. With a flair for analogies, Berman imparts a visceral understanding of the scale of stellar objects. And in case your explorations do lead you to buy a telescope, the book's appendices contain a variety of no-nonsense advice that may save you from getting fleeced.

...A fantastic tour of the wonders of modern physics and cosmology, Strange Matters begins with a wild romp through the cosmos hosted by leading theorists of the past. We see how their ideas blossomed from imagined to proved as observers and experimenters gradually provided verification of once-crazy hypotheses. We then hitch a ride with today's physicists to learn what twenty-first century science has to offer in the way of cutting edge theories -- ideas that even now eagerly await confirmation...