Five books to fire my passion for science

Is there a book that can find the answers to life, the universe and everything? Well, probably not! But there are a lot of books out there that can shed some light on our existence, from the smallest atoms to the secrets of the universe. And they can make it fun, too! Here secret site member Secret Scribbler recommends five of the best

Here’s my confession. Although I love science, and can never get enough of the latest story – I avidly followed the nail-biting progress of the Rosetta space probe on its way to rendezvous with the romantically named comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for months before Philae’s fateful landing – this interest wasn’t inculcated by a childhood of amateur experiments. I didn’t take apart clocks and motors to see how they worked before (unsuccessfully) attempting to piece them back together. No insects were imprisoned in my bedroom to be crossbred in the hope of creating mutants (although I do recall rescuing a pair of woodlice from the garden on a baking summer’s day; despite my efforts to recreate their natural diet the unfortunate crustaceans soon expired).

Unsurprisingly, when I finally got to secondary school some of my experiments did not exactly go to plan. A (smelly) fish dissection filled me with dread. During a calorimetry practical an unnecessarily extravagant gesture sent the glass thermometer onto the floor in pieces. My electric motor failed spectacularly to work. (My Dad used to work in a school; he told me that these motors never worked in his day either, which at least goes to show that the laws of physics are constant.)

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