Contriving

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I’m a big fan of all sorts of books.

I read lots of science fiction.  It’s my go-to genre when I’m bored and want to read something.  You would assume my favorite book would fall within the genre, I know I made that assumption.

Today I realized that wasn’t the case.  Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov holds this distinction.  I read this first probably in junior high and it just blew me away.   I was always an underachiever in school.  A lot of that had to do with the fact that, while I knew I was smart, I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to understand complicated things.  This book changed all of that.

Asimov’s writing style is just fantastic when it comes to explaining topics.  In this book he does a great job of not only explaining how things work, but how we figured them out and how scientists depend on the work of their predecessors.

I would put this book somewhere between pop science books without a bit of math and a full-on textbook.  However, even though it has math in it, it is completely attainable to someone who normally only reads the pop science books.

I rarely re-read books, but I find myself reading this one every couple of years.  You will too.