The History of Our Universe in 21 Stars: (That You Can Spot in the Night Sky)

Must read. Really enjoyed it.

I was surprised at how good this book is - I thought it might be a bit 'noddy' from the title but it really is a good, well researched history of science category book about developments in astronomy from galileo right up to the present. And it is written by someone who clearly is not only a theoretician but knows his night sky and shows you how to find and see stars that have been significant in the development of astronomy (well 3C 273 might be a bit hard for the amateur to see). I started reading about astronomy with Isaac Asimov's non-fiction books on the subject and have continued with other popular accounts since then but can say that this is right up there with the best of them. Typcal of the things I learnt here are why Cepheid variabe stars have a period-luminosity relationship and why Type 1a supernovae can be used as standard candles. Only one annoyance is the large number of typos in the kindle version - it would have been worth paying a copyeditor or anyone who was not the author to check it.

Well written, good humoured with a foundation in solid science. Now I need the clods to clear...