Cosmos: The Infographic Book of Space

This is useful for two very different audiences. First, if you're interested in astronomy and astrophysics it'll give you a lot to think about. They start from the nearest and extend to the farthest, and strive for a simplified appreciation of scale, evolution and process. If a picture is worth a thousand words and a good graph ten times that many, this is a book filled with excellent graphs.Second, not all the visualizations work. Its hard to bat a thousand, so that's no real fault. But the visualizations the authors have put together break new ground in the display of complexity and scale. There's a lot in this that takes the lessons of e.g. Tufte or Few and extends them in interesting directions. Again, some of these graphs just don't work, but if you do visualization for a living the reason why the graph fails is illuminating.

I failed to read the fine print, thought I was getting a great deal on the paperback version of a hardback book I love... only to discover my middle-aged eyes can't handle the print size of the paperback version very well. It's a wonderful book. Make sure you can handle the smaller-dimension format if you are considering the paperback version and you are over forty and nearsighted like me. The content is awesome.

One of my best friends had shoulder surgery and I got her this to help take her mind off of the discomfort!! She liked it

Got it for my nephew, 7. He loves it. He's fast reader so I had to get something that'll take longer to finish. This is perfect because it's full of interesting facts and it's long.

Mostly illustrations but very well done. Full of facts you would not ever think to ask but find enthralling.

I have just received it, and I love it. It is full of charts for the sky with light explanations, as I know nothing about the endless sky an stars, I hope this book helps me.

A great gift for that space enthusiast child or adult. Full of fun graphics, and fascinating comparisons. It'll engage your imagination and curiosity with every turn of the page.

Very informative. The best thing about this is the visual graphics to help you grasp the concepts about the sizes, vastness and great distances of the cosmos

Excellent infodumps (the one on what happens when you decompress seems incorrect though; you will NOT get "the bends" but you WILL get water vapour bubbles in your blood vessel within seconds, which will cause your heart to run on empty). Anyway, only 2 stars because in the hardcover format the infographics DON'T WORK: they are printed on opposite page sides. Only a lay-flat binding or a one-image-per-page A3 format book woul be acceptable. As it is, you lose about 1 centimer right down the center. BUMMER!

excellent book on whats up there, if a little short, from what i've seen most modern space books are aimed mainly at children, WHY

Incredible amount of information presented in one book. Definitely a book that is perfect to pick up again and again and again. You'll find something new each time.

Brought for my son, brilliant book and ended up being enjoyed by all the family

Become an armchair astronaut.This fantastic book is a really entertaining, informative and visually delicious read.