In Love with The Universe

Yes, I'm in love with (the) Universe, a gorgeous new book from Dorling-Kindersley. I saw this huge 500+ page book last week at Borders for $50, but delayed gratification long enough to get home and order it for $31.50 on Amazon. Like most DK books, it is heavily and colorfully illustrated, and beautifully designed, but the range of subjects and depth of information is greater than for a typical DK volume. Edited by Martin Rees of Trinity College, Cambridge, with the help of a team of specialists, this is basically the most comprehensive general-interest astronomy reference I've ever seen. Wow.

My book backlog is growing. My neocortex has just finished On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins (companion web site here, and the company formed by Hawkins to develop technology based on the theory of Hierarchical Temporal Memory [HTM] described in the book is Numenta.com). On deck are Project Orion by George Dyson, Earth (an introduction to physical geology) by Tarbuck & Lutgens, Our Final Hour by Martin Rees (see above!), and Collapse by Jared Diamond. After these, I think I will try to find something serious to read.