What Are Books Like Astrophysics For Young People In A Hurry?

I’m really opposed to this idea of shy people only needing romance to be fulfilled in fiction. I’d much rather suggest a great fantasy or sci-fi novel with a focus on really deep platonic relationships, growth, and adventure, without any romance. No pressure to feel the characters’ romantic feelings or to imagine yourself in their shoes. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is a great example of a really shy, kind, gentle protagonist who finds his way into a position of great power and then tries to earn respect while building a family made up of secretaries, bodyguards, and other friends. It’s a really growth-oriented story with a focus on how a decent person can navigate a difficult, cutthroat court, and I think it’s more nourishing for a quiet evening than any love story.

I think a really good book for someone to start to learn more about science through fiction is “The Rosie Project” by Graeme Simsion. As a genetics professor, Don Tillman is a very logical person. He tries to develop a system to find the love of his life, but everything doesn’t go as planned. The book is very fun and heartwarming. It’s not really a chemistry book, but it does show the kind of way that scientists look at the world, and how they try to solve problems. This book is very good for someone who is starting to look into the world of science, because it shows a very logical person trying to solve problems in his everyday life in a very scientific way. ‘The Disappearing Spoon’ is another fabulous book that weaves great stories about the elements and their scientists with the hard facts. My belief is that beginners will find this an exciting and less frightening introduction to the ‘hard’ science of chemistry. Sam Kean’s clever weaving of historical events, the odd personal tales and his in-depth descriptions of the various elements mean that a great big story is constructed from seemingly dry facts. As Don Tillman recognises in ‘The Rosie Project’, scientists are just as fascinating as any fictional characters and Sam Kean has an array of characters to pull from the long list of the scientists of the elements. A Science Fiction book that centres around someone involved in Forensic Science has to be considered for this list and in this case, the main protagonist David Hunter is a forensic anthropologist which makes ‘The Chemistry of Death’ by Simon Beckett an ideal science fiction book. Although it is more centered towards the aspects of a Forensic Scientist, the detail that goes into the chemical processes of decay, could be of great interest to someone starting out in chemistry. It’s a great ‘story’ book, with plenty of suspense that keeps you gripped to the book, whilst always coming back to Chemistry within the story. This historical fiction novel is set in the 18th century. A young woman, Emilie, was brought up by her alchemist father in isolation. Her father taught her the alchemist’s craft, and after his death, she is left alone with many questions. She sets out to discover the truth about her father’s life and his work. Her journey becomes one of discovery and of the roots of chemistry. The author provides a great insight into historical science and the novels follows the main character on her journey of discovery and growth. A most enjoyable and thought provoking non-fiction book relating chemistry to real crimes is ‘Elements of Murder’ by John Emsley. This book tells the dark history of poisonous elements used throughout time for crime and assists the reader to understand the aspect of chemistry that can be important in Forensic Science and Environmental issues. This book is written in an entertaining manner making an enjoyable and enjoyable read providing a real insight into real life crime.

Consider for a moment the fantastical meta-fantasy ‘The Neverending Story’ by Michael Ende. While essentially a story about a boy slowly but surely being consumed by the book he reads, the amazing landscapes of the Story within the Story, Fantastica, are so vivid and perfectly realized for a mature young reader that they include a very compelling Journey, noble Companions, urgent and desperate Quest, and a deeply and profoundly melancholic and philosophical subtext that reveals itself layer by layer on subsequent reads. The transformation of the shy Boy Bastian to confident Boy is that of every reader. Iconic creations such as the Childlike Empress and lucky white scaled dragon Falkor, and the Nothing, all reside within this deep and complex, yet accessibly written tale of loss, ego, and the nature of stories. A growing up book that continues to reveal new layers on subsequent reads by the mature young reader.

Most such books treat the mathematical concepts as mere plot taxis, but a few authors treat the math with the respect it warrants as the main driver of the plot. Greg Egan’s Diaspora is a good example of this type of science fiction. In Diaspora, the characters are all software “cover bands” and the various dimensions that they travel to are mathematical concepts. Diaspora is not a “fun” read in the sense that it is not a lighthearted or even an entertaining book. However, if you want to have your brain bent in interesting ways, then Diaspora is the book for you. The travel from place to place is not a journey in the sense that most readers of science fiction would expect. Instead, it is a proof of some sort or another.

I’m just sitting here nodding along at all of your examples. This makes sense in a really structured way and now I see it in everything I watch and read. I will have to go back and apply this to all of my favorite stories.

'Chandler Legacies', Abdi Nazemian's novel about five students at a boarding school in the 1990s, focuses on Beth who is stuck in limbo not knowing how to express her hidden love for her roommate Sarah. But this unrequited love is fraught with much silence and fear of detection from the faculty and the rest of the student body. However, with secret after-school writing sessions led by Beth, she finds solace and support from her fellow struggling students, resulting in the novel portraying finding one’s voice not only creatively but also personally. The main love story is but one of many interlocking friendships, of other secret hopes and traumatic memories of all of the five main characters, but above all an exploration of silence, fear, secrets and hidden expressions of love, aching to be free in times when such love could not be openly uttered or acknowledged – it’s all such to carefully be hidden and thus, sometimes, to be deliberately and very carefully codified and expressed in subtle yet clear gestures of endearment.

For a bit of a twist, look at The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley. Like the Emerald Tablet, this short book of paradoxes is seriously funny in places, yet profound in others. The Golden Chain of Homer is similarly fascinating, a deeply satisfying nature philosophy and alchemy book that’s less obscure than the Tablet yet no less magical. Again, these books are not reads – they are experiences which stay with you long after you have finished reading them – like a truly wonderful joke that somehow becomes even greater with age.

The obvious and monumental choice here would be Arthur C. Clarke’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. The journey to Jupiter in the film is painstakingly and realistically depicted. The quiet, routine, often psychological pressure on the crew is conveyed through the perfect, sinister logic of HAL. The real journey in the film is that of human experience in a very plausible mission to Saturn (in the book). The mysterious monoliths merely add to the whole.

Of course, there are other massive children’s book publishers like Scholastic (so extensively entrenched in schools and book fairs that it’s sort of surreal). But in terms of prestige and literary distinction, I’d rank Penguin Random House (Knopf Books for Young Readers, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, etc.) above the rest. And then there’s HarperCollins Children’s Books, with its enormous backlist. But really, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster are the two other big players in the traditional publishing world. But again, this is corporate, publishing-bigwigs stuff. The actual YA publishing world is a bunch of passionate, idiosyncratic individual editors who happen to work for these various companies. The logos on the spines of the published books are pretty irrelevant.

One book that I would recommend to people who like ‘The Pyramid Principle’ is ‘The Craft of Research’ by Wayne Booth et al. It is primarily written for academics but does offer superb advice on how to construct arguments of any sort, in particular the section on ‘questions worth asking’ helped to save me from some hours of drudgery producing rather pointless work which ended up in dead-end drafts. And for a completely different take on the subject of clear thinking and writing, I recommend ‘Wait, What?’ by James Ryan. ‘Wait, What?’ is a very short book that distills clear thinking down to five core questions which are perfect to refer back to when the formulaic approach of ‘The Pyramid Principle’ is just too much. The book by James Ryan is also great because it reads like a conversation with a very wise old friend who cuts through lots of BS and gets straight to the point. The only other book on clear thinking that even comes close to this is ‘Bird by Bird’ by Anne Lamott. And whereas ‘Bird by Bird’ is not really about logic at all, it does contain loads of really good advice on structure versus chaos and how you arrive at a clear and coherent argument (i.e. via ‘shitty first drafts’).