The Planets: A Journey Through the Solar System by Giles Sparrow
After reviewing Death from the Skies on Thursday, I decided to go on a space kick and focus on writing reviews of astronomy-related books for the next week or so. Since I happen to be a little on the obsessive side when it comes to astronomy (okay, more than a little obsessive, but that’s all I’ll admit to!) I think I’ll have several many astronomy books to choose from when writing these upcoming reviews.
Today’s book is The Planets: A Journey Through the Solar System by Giles Sparrow. I found it in the bargain bin section of the local bookstore when browsing one day and I bought it, making this one of the few books that I have reviewed that I have actually owned (since most books I review come from the library).
First, about the book itself: Sparrow focuses only on the objects in our solar system in The Planets – namely, the planets, the Sun, the moons, the asteroids and even a few comets thrown in for good measure. This is the first book I’ve read that focused on just our solar system, so that was cool to me.
But originally, I was fairly disappointed by the lack of in-depth information about each object. The layout was basically one page dedicated to talking about the planet, and then a whole slew of pages with pictures of different aspects of the planet and its moons. I was expecting more text than that, so that was off-putting for me originally. But then as I got more into the book and read all of the captions for all of those pictures, I realized how much was really there, and how much fun it was to actually see all of the planets and moons instead of just reading about them.
If you are looking for a treatise on each planet – lots of text, etc – then you will not want this book. But if you’re looking for minimal text and lots and lots of gorgeous pictures, then this book is going to be perfect for you. I really loved learning things like the fact that Neptune has a Great Dark Spot (similar to the Great Red Spot on Jupiter) that is as big as Earth. Just one ongoing storm on the face of Neptune is as big as our entire planet. Does that blow anyone’s mind? I love learning things like that. (Warning, warning – a true geek is writing this post!!)
When I first noticed the lack of text and was consequently disgruntled about it, I had thought I’d sell this book in my upcoming garage sale. But instead, I am going to keep it and bring it with me into the classroom when I teach. This would be a fantastic book for pretty much any grade from second on up. The pictures are large and detailed enough that even young readers without strong reading skills could spend hours looking at the pictures, while the older kids would be enthralled by all of the accompanying info. Although this is an adult book, I think it would intrigue a wide swath of ages.
I give The Planets: A Journey Through the Solar System 4.5 out of 5 stars. I still wish it had more text, but other than this drawback, I loved it.
Anyone have any suggestions for space/astronomy books that they think I’d enjoy? I could honestly read about astronomy all day long. It is fascinating to me. So leave any and all suggestions below!
I suppose having all those photos, with captions that explain what you’re seeing, is the closest thing any of us can get to the “hands on” type of learning that aids our learning from text, eh?
As to suggestions for other books to read, I don’t know if it would be in your library or not, but there is the book I mentioned in my comment on your previous post: The Quirks & Quarks Guide to Space: 42 Questions (and Answers) About Life, the Universe, and Everything.
It’s by one of the guys who works on the CBC Radio science program, “Quirks & Quarks.” He and the program’s host (who writes an extensive Intro) are big space geeks. And this is a compilation of what they learned as they’ve had all sorts of scientists on their program over the last few years.
I have always loved reading about space too! We had a great hardback book on space growing up that I loved to go through. I’d look at the amazing pictures and ponder on the weirdness of black holes….
It was probably intended as a “coffee table” book. You’d think I’d have some good suggestion, being a rocket scientist and all, but I really know very little about astronomy that isn’t more like a textbook. Have you checked with Bob at Black Holes and Astrostuff? He’s big into astronomy.
Phyl, I read your post that you linked to in your previous comment – the book sounds amazing! Just like something I would love to read. I just did a search and no, we don’t have it in our library.
I just did an interlibrary loan request, but I have a feeling that I’m about to do another one. 
Thank you very much for the recommendation.
Stephanie, I was actually thinking of you when I asked for suggestions. I was sure you’d have something really great to share. You’re letting me down here! LOL!
But yeah, I really don’t want to read textbook style books. I love learning when it isn’t a struggle to do so, and to me, textbooks are the ultimate struggle for learning. Somehow, they manage to take an incredibly interesting and mind-boggling topic, and reduce it down to boring and dry crap. How this is possible, I’m not sure, but it seems to happen every time. It’s rare for me to read a textbook that doesn’t make me want to bang my head against a wall.
I should see if Bob has any suggestions – that’s a great idea. I could honestly just run a book review site where I review nothing but space and astronomy books – I love the topic that much. But, I shall refrain from it because there is so many topics out there that I want to learn about – I don’t want to miss out on learning about a variety of things by pigeonholing myself into one topic.
Hava
Sariah, somehow I missed your comment. Whoops!
I think I remember that book because if we’re thinking about the same one, that was one of my favorites too. One of my dreams growing up was to be an astronaut. Well, you can see how well that went
but that doesn’t mean I can’t still read and learn and dream about space!
Havs