Book description
Over the years, millions of school children must have written out their
address in the same way - their house number and street, their town,
their country, their continent, planet Earth, the universe…
Following this simplest of patterns, taking each line of the address as
a starting point, Tim Radford explores our place in the scheme of things
- why we are attached to a particular geographical place and what
significance do we have when faced with the realms of astronomy and astrophysics.
Fascinating, entertaining and completely original, The Address Book
tackles some of the most fundamental questions facing us, and allows us
see ourselves completely afresh. 'One of our finest science writers …
Radford's book builds into a complex and compelling linguistic, poetic,
scientific, spiritual and historical survey' The Times
'A beautiful, meditative book … showing us that the familiar is
stranger than we think, and that the unfamiliar, the cosmos, is even
stranger' Guardian
'Fascinating … [a] personal slice of popular science' Evening Standard
'A miscellany of scientific marvels' The Times
'This beautiful, meditative book is a surprise in these clamorous
times: one good deed in a naughty world' Guardian Tim Radford is a
freelance journalist. He worked for The Guardian for 32 years, becoming
(among other things) letters editor, arts editor, literary editor and
science editor. He won the Association of British Science Writers award
for science writer of the year four times. He served on the UK committee
for the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. He has
lectured about science and the media in dozens of British and foreign
cities. He has written one book, The Crisis of Life On Earth, and edited
two books of science writing for the Guardian.
