Dava Sobel is a writer and former science reporter for the New York Times. Her books include Longitude and The Planets, which was published last year.
What are the three best popular-science books?
Three of my top picks are Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962) because it changed the world for the better; The Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan (1973) because it was as movingly written as it was factually informative; and Naturalist by E O Wilson (1994) because the author shared his childhood fascination for his subject in a manner likely to inspire young readers to pursue careers in science.
What science books are you currently reading?
I am currently serving out the second year of my second term as a judge for the Los Angeles Times book prize in science and technology, which means I am trying to read every science book published in 2005, including Big Bang by Simon Singh and A Sense of the Mysterious by Alan Lightman.
What else are you reading?
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close [a novel] by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Which popular-science book have you never read, but feel you ought to have tackled, and why?
Just Six Numbers, In the Matrix and other works by the cosmologist Martin Rees, because I am interested in his research and in the office of the Astronomer Royal, and because he seems to be such an interesting thinker.
What advice do you have for physicists who want to write a popular-science book?
I would advise them to pick one person they know – either friend or family, but not a scientist – to whom they might address what they have to say. I would then write the book with the fervent intention of making that person both understand the material in the story and enjoy the telling of it.
•The Planets was reviewed in Physics World last October, pp42-43 (see “Secret lives of the solar system “). The book was published exactly 10 years after Longitude, which has so far sold over 1.5 million copies in the US and UK
