The most recommended black hole books

A very dark turn in my list, indeed. A hole opens up in their apartment, who knows who or why? It doesn’t matter. They dub it the funhole, and would do what any of us would do, and start sticking things inside of it. Things get dark, fast.

If you want to be up all night, unable to sleep, give this book a whirl.

Kathy loved this book by Jane Dutton, and found herself exclaiming, “Yes!” as she read through this book that validated the energy she did receive abundantly through small moments of connection at work!

As a senior executive, Kathy could have thousands of people in her organization. Wanting to know each and every one of them was a luxury she could not afford, so she did her best to make those opportunities she did have for meaningful connections, no matter how brief, to count for her and the other person with whom she was interacting.

Jane systematically provides the science of how and why this works, along with so many useful tools for those to whom this does not come naturally!

Black holes are surely the most mysterious structures known to physics. In this short and highly accessible book, Levin, an astrophysicist at Barnard College of Columbia University, brings her unique poetic style to the puzzles found at the frontiers of physics. Warped spacetime, event horizons, singularities – it’s all here. And Lia Halloran’s delightful illustrations help bring the story to life.

The other novels I’ve listed here are optimistic, hopeful stories.

This one takes us on a dark and bloody path.

In The Mirror Empire, two nearly identical worlds populated by violent people and sentient (also violent!) plants are at war with each other.

The only doorway between them is powered by blood.

The limitations of this concept are fascinating. Since the worlds are duplicates of each other, each person who lives in one world has a copy of themselves living in the other.

The twist? A person can only cross to the other side if their imposter is dead.

Talk about consequences!

This novel is incredibly bloody and full of betrayal. It’s violent, but the intense action had my eyes pinned open late into the night. 

The Mirror Empire is often gory and frequently shocking, but two things are for sure: You won’t be able to predict what’s… show more.

Earth, published in 1990, had me dog-earing many, many pages. A sense of our responsibility to the planet is shot through the book. For me this novel was very much in the spirit of a near – but warped – future that I had so enjoyed early on in books like John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar. When I wrote to Brunner to say that his dystopian view of the future struck me as likely, he replied that he was disappointed, having written it as a warning, to minimize the risk of the future being driven off the rails by over-population. 

Earth, overall, is more optimistic. Another novel on related themes by Brin was The Postman, made into a film starring Kevin Costner. Again, I interviewed David early in 2021 for our new Green Swans Observatory—and a key theme was his inspiration by the Judaic concept of… show more.

 So, I didn’t read much fiction last year. Been doing research for my next novel so I read a lot of science books, mostly theoretical physics, which should give you a heads up to the genre of my next project!

Kip Thorne is a pre-eminent theoretical physicist and was the main tech advisor on Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar”. If you like stuff that messes with your head, and your whole understanding of what we know as reality, this is the book for you!

A colleague and frequent collaborator with Stephen Hawking, Theories on time travel, space travel, the beginnings of time itself will give you plenty to ponder.

I seem to be drawn to troubled characters—hence this list—and Robinette (Bob) Broadband is surely troubled.

We see his struggle from the book’s beginning, in which a virtual psychoanalyst, Sigfrid, attempts to get him to face and discuss his emotions. Sigfrid is itself an intriguing and, while it claims not to be sentient, still a sympathetic character.

Key aspects of the SF worldbuilding are also doled out carefully throughout the book, and then in the three books that follow. The scope of this imagined future and the importance of the stakes are revealed as the series continues.

This book has everything a scifi adventure needs: spaceships, black holes, exoplanets, and androids. Also, well-developed characters facing personal demons as friends become foes and enemies become allies.

The story contains little gems. I loved the aptitude test for new officers – so believable (and delightful,) I wonder if it happened on some real-life military ship. When I was about to head out for an appointment, I read faster and faster.

Could I finish the story before I had to leave? Well, maybe being five minutes late wasn't so bad. Ah! Satisfying ending.

This is not a fiction book per se but each chapter sets out a possible future, in a story-like form, of how life as we know it might be terminated on Earth. We know for a fact that mass extinctions have happened before but this time, we may well have the smarts to do something about it. This book inspires us to look up not down and marvel at the cosmos that made us but that also might unmake us. It is a clarion call for us to become planetary caretakers, rather than planetary abusers.

Another excellent title, as far as I’m concerned.

Possibly one of the most bonkers picture books I’ve ever read – incorporating cake, cosmic vibrations, black holes, and cheese-salad sandwiches – it’s an absolute riot, and I loved the twist, which happens a bit before the end but is hilariously satisfying after all the madness leading up to it.