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.
