Why is Uranus Upside Down? And Other Questions About the Universe (Fred Watson, A&U, $24.95 pb, ISBN 9781741752533, October) ***

Have you ever looked to the night sky and asked the questions why do stars twinkle? What’s outside the universe? What are shooting stars? And is there life elsewhere in the solar system? Well, you’re not alone. These are the questions that people have been asking since the time of Ptolemy and now in his new book Why is Uranus Upside Down? astronomer and ABC radio broadcaster Fred Watson takes on the big why, how and what questions too. Complied from years of listener questions and the musings of curious astro aficionados you don’t need a PhD in astrophysics to understand the answers. Aimed at would-be astronomers and amateur stargazers, Watson, who has a clear passion for his subject, explains complex ideas, theories and phenomena, such as dark matter and black holes, in a way that is accessible and entertaining, with lots of DIY experiments along the way. A fascinating read from beginning to end but also a daunting one when you are reminded that the place we call home is orbiting through space at a speed of 30km/second, that outside the universe there is nothing and of the probability of ‘cosmic collapse’.

Esther Van Doornum is a writer and works as a bookseller at Readings in Carlton

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker