I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, getting my facts in order for an upcoming revision. To gather information, I’ve been hitting up my local library, placing holds and orders on some titles that probably haven’t seen the light of day in a while. Others are so hot, it was tough to get my hands on them. Right now I’ve got a stack of books that is almost as tall as I am, hundreds of pages of notes, and some seriously dark circles under my eyes. It feels sort of like being in school again, which has been so much FUN. Yes, yes. I am that big of a nerd.
I may never use most of these crazy-awesome facts I’ve been collecting, but that doesn’t really matter to me. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy reading just to grow my brain. (Even if the process is occasionally painful.) The past few weeks have also given me a deeper respect for those academic champions among us who can present complex concepts and ideas in a way that anyone (aka. me) can pick up and understand. As a sign of my appreciation, I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight a few such authors. The following books were some of my favorite because they broke down these huge ideas into pieces that were easy to digest. They also had a compelling storytelling style that sucked me in. All of them succeeded in convincing me of one thing in particular: Truth really is stranger than fiction.
The 4 Percent Universe, by Richard Paneck
The Hidden Reality, by Brian Greene (His series on PBS was also awesome)
Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku