The most recommended books on spacetime

The haunting themes and mood of The Owl Service lodged themselves in my imagination when I first read it as a teenager and there they stay, decades later. I’ve returned to its mysterious and beguiling world several times since then, and on each occasion, the book has immediately woven its old spell around me. It is rich in Welsh magic as the past is played out against the backdrop of the present, and a hidden collection of plates decorated with what might be a pattern of owls becomes something far more potent and sinister. This is one of the books that first introduced me to the mysteries of landscape, the power of the past, and the enduring life of myths.

This reports on a physics experiment that shows how people in a state of deep concentration can focus their intention and create changes in their environment. In a special unitary symmetry state energy is exchanged via both photons (light) and phonons (sound), moving faster than light. Fine, information-wave generated patterns then activate all sorts of particles and modulate substances in a measurable and meaningful way. Any moment we are concentrating our intention, we therefore have tremendous power not only over ourselves but also over our environment and our future.

In February 2016, astronomers announced the discovery of gravitational waves, the last remaining prediction of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Gravitational waves are produced by the collision of gigantic bodies—neutron stars, blackholes—and from exploding stars. This book details the trials and tribulations as scientists attempt to build the most accurate measuring devices known to humankind. The result of their success is the LIGO observatories in Washington and Louisiana. 

Since the first discovery, we now have listened to a multitude of gravitational waves—our universe sings with these songs as the waves flow across the universe. Waves that may allow us to hear the sounds of the Big Bang. The intragalactic ships in my own books utilize these gravitational waves to travel at faster-than-light speeds. I was awed by the scientific determination and rooted for the scientists as they overcame one hurdle after another.

I challenged myself by listening to Cloud Cuckoo Land and pondered keeping up with extremely diverse plots and story threads. And yet, I discovered a thrill ride that traversed the past, present, and future! I employed the five senses—sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—with illustrative descriptions and vivid, vulnerable characters that kept my imagination on full tilt.

I learned that I don’t have to love the characters when I’m empathetic and understanding of their weaknesses, defects, and personal history of suffering and loss. I didn’t miss a beat with all the twists and turns, and a tapestry emerged from divergent storylines. Also, I love it when an author innovates word usage, especially verbs! This book is a descriptive writing master class in a book!

This book comes with all the fun and banter that you expect from Scalzi. Jamie, the main character, is from our Earth but gets a job on a parallel Earth where nuclear-powered Kaiju are the order of the day.

The fantastical and far-fetched plot is a lot of fun, but there is a much deeper point to this book, calling out late-stage capitalism and tech-bro culture. This book is a wild adventure and a condemnation of the morally corrupt individuals who have so much power in our own world.

Edward Eager’s books were my inspiration when I started writing the President and Me series. I picked The Time Garden here because it specifically deals with the concept of time, but most of Eager’s books would fit the bill, including Half Magic. Eager’s books, published in the 1950s and ‘60s, feature kids who have magic adventures, often through time travel but are also grounded in their own present-day reality, with issues they have to cope with in between their escapades.

It is in Bergson's Time and Free Will that I first encountered an inspiring way to think of time. A way of thinking about time that does not focus on the time of clocks and calendars; that does not emphasize the physical homogeneous aspect of time, but rather reveals the relation between time and human existence. This book opened up not only an entirely new way of thinking about time, but a new way of approaching life: instead of focusing on the spatial, static, exterior, homogeneous milestones of life, I rather focus on the temporal, fleeting, inner, heterogeneous qualities of my life. Bergson writes in a relatively clear style, and his texts are accessible also for the interested layperson.

I like the way Barker takes really bizarre characters like John Mischief and makes the reader relate to them in an unexpected way. What could be more human than an experience of unrequited love. In Abarat, the lord of midnight falls in love with the princess of day. He’s a really evil guy, but his falling in love is still believable because he’s thinking about the joining of night and day. I’m glad Barker didn’t try to get me to feel sorry for him by showing how his mother locked him in a closet when he was a little boy. That is so boilerplate.

Sean Carroll has a special knack for explaining complicated stuff, and there a few things more complicated than comparing and contrasting the various competing interpretations of quantum mechanics.

Carroll has a horse in this race—the many worlds interpretation—and he’s not shy about making his case, which is in part why the book is so entertaining. A spirited polemicist, Carroll knows his chosen theory has many detractors, but he’s more than ready to debate. As a bonus his writing is as personable and witty as his explanations are clear.

I’ve tried to explain this book to people for years, with varying degrees of success. It’s odd considering I’ve read it ten times. Bachelard was a philosopher but this is a work of deeply-rooted poetry. It’s not really philosophy or analysis, this book. It’s more of a seductive, lyrical invitation inside Bachelard’s dreamy, passionate imagination.

It explores the concept of “home” and the distinctions of inside and outside. It has nothing to do with cities or urbanism at first glance, but the second time I read it I tried to superimpose it onto the urban context. The idea of a city as a home - a notion that the Nobel Prize laureate for literature, Johannes V. Jensen, planted in my head in his 1934 novel Gudrun. I still have trouble explaining how, but this book is the seed for many of my thoughts and philosophies about space and cities.