Customer Reviews

Cosmos

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Giles Sparrow's 'Cosmos' is a fantastic journey through space. From the innermost objects in our solar system, to the outermost limits of known space, and everything in between, Sparrow brings us in depth descriptions and amazing pictures of our universe.

This is the best book about space and astronomy that Ive ever purchased. This book is a perfect introduction to the universe for beginners, yet provides fascinating information and pictures even for veteran and professional astronomers.

The book is huge physically, which is appropriate considering the contents inside it. And at the price its going now, it is a huge value. Highly recommended.

From a review of the best beautiful astronomy & space books, on my Xanga blog AeroGo (see profile for info):

"[A] quite impressive book from the UK is Giles Sparrow's Cosmos: A Field Guide, a very large hardback. Besides the many large illustrations of various sorts, such as the Himalayas from space, a scale of Saturn's rings and moons, and many beautiful planetary nebulae, Cosmos has the best depiction I've seen of the universe as a whole. This is done (pp. 204-5) with a fascinating series of depictions of our own galactic cluster and how it fits into larger clusters and superclusters.

The creators of Cosmos are also to be commended for their good taste in putting one of my favorites, the Sombrero Galaxy, on the cover. In all, this book is an outstanding coffee table book, and about big enough to be a coffee table!"

I recently purchased this book and I must say, I am very impressed! The book is quite simply large, physically. I mean it's huge! It could very well be the largest book I've ever read. It really adds to the incredible scale of the subject matter. As far as pictures and photographs go, this book contains, by far, the most impressive array of cosmic photography I have ever seen. Not just in quantity but in quality. All of the photos are perfectly clear and as large as the book itself. At $30, this is honestly a steal! A must own!

What a beautiful volume! This book provides a view of the cosmos, with amazing photos and fine visual representations. The author notes (page 6): "The aim of this book is to help make sense of our crowded, chaotic cosmos. . . .Along the route of our celestial odyssey, we attempt not only to explain the nature of the different objects we encounter, but also try to put them in the wider context of history--their own, and that of the cosmos as a whole."

This is a massive volume, weighing a lot, with very large sized pages. This format allows much space to depict wonderful photos and representations on the cosmos. And for a pretty reasonable price at that!

The first part of the book focuses on the "Interplanetary." Each planet and other characters in the Solar system (such as the asteroids and moons) get space here. For instance, the treatment of Earth features photos that illustrate landforms, tectonics, and life. Only a few pages, but a lot of stuff is jammed into that space.

Part II is entitled "Interstellar," and focuses on the stars, with some enchanting images of the Milky Way galaxy, star clusters, nebulae, and so on. Visually stunning.

Part III, in turn, explores the "Intergalactic." The "local group" (including The Milky Way, Andromeda, Magellanic Clouds, etc.) leads this segment of the volume off. Other galaxies are also presented, with this part ending with a consideration of galactic evolution.

The fourth, and final, part of the book looks at "Deep Space and Time." This concludes with an examination of "The Big Bang" and "The End."

For those interested in where Earth fits into the larger universe, this is an interesting book. It is an accessible work; one need not be an astronomer to appreciate this. A wonderful work!

The subject of this book is so gargantuan and the sheer size of the book itself reflects that. When LOOKING at this book, one will become completely overwhelmed by the incomprehensible magnitude of the known universe and the absolute specs of dust (even less!) that we are as humans inhabiting it. The pictures in this book bring tears to my eyes often upon viewing. If anything came close to being able to fathom the unfathomable power, scope, size and beauty of known life, this book is it. I cannot believe I bought it for $29.95 when it should have costed at least $100. Its worth is priceless when you consider that its actually a book that can impact you so heavily with thoughts about life, the meaning of existence, god, time, eternity, etc. to such a degree that no other book I've read can come close to.

Warning!! Do Not Buy This Book!!
Definitely DO NOT Buy This Book!! If you can't handle the magnificence of the UNIVERSE and how tiny our lovely corner Earth and Sun in the scheme of things! Try as much as they can, the reviews praising this book can't give it justice for everything they wrote about it is true and more. I know this is not a helpful review and probably a waste of your time, but please excuse my enthusiasm for I had to say something about this outstanding book. The elegant pictures will WARP you out there where no one has ever gone before, and quite possible no one ever will. Look at images of creation and appreciate this existence for the truth is everywhere including out there in the realms of the unknown vast universe.

Again excuse my review if you found it useless and redundant.

Half a century ago, LIFE published some of the first color photographs taken through astronomical telescopes. It was a revelation.

This book goes several orders of magnitude beyond "revelation". You just sit there gasping at the incredible beauty of the universe.

This is not just another huge coffee-table book. You are likely to return to it over and over, until you've studied the details of every photograph and read every word of text.

Amazingly detailed pictures of the cosmos from space probes and Hubble due to quality printing and the fact that this book has some serious real estate. It measurs 17.3 x 14.2 inches!! Like a posterbook. When you think of the work and money it took to get some of these photos, especially the outer planets, you come up with millions of dollars invested to get us these shots. Very inspiring to anyone who loves sci fi since this is the real deal and what it's based on. An amazing gift we have been given to see what is out there ...so so far away.

Couldn't agree more with the other reviewers - an astonishingly beautiful and well organized exploration of the universe. The photos and text are so rich that a few pages at a time provide wonderment for the whole day!

This book caught my eye at the library about 3 years ago, so I decided to check it out. Little did I know that it would lead me to the door that would open to a world of astronomy, and spark a new hobby and fascination. The book is very large with beautiful pictures of so many objects in out universe. The text is precise, but not to uninformative. I have since bought other astronomy books since I have this new fascination, but every one has been slightly less satisfying than this book. It would be the perfect coffee table book, except for it is so priceless to me I don't want it to really get damaged from kids and visitors, you know? I also got "the planets" by Giles Sparrow, and it was a great book with a focus on our solar system, however, it was not the same size. It is a good book in it's own right, but the Cosmos blows your mind. Very highly rated.