Blog Tour Review: The One Thing You Need To Know by Marcus Chown

Hey everyone!
Today is my stop on the blog tour for The One Thing You Need To Know by Marcus Chown, and I am excited to be sharing my review with you all.

A massive thank you to @Lovebookstours and @OMaraBooks for allowing me to be a part of the tour.

Title: The One Thing You Need To Know
Author: Marcus Chown
Publisher: Michael O’Mara Books
Genre: Non-Fiction Science
Page Count: 256
Buy It Here (affiliate links): Amazon UK

Book Blurb:

You’ll never know it all.

The world of science bursts with vast concepts that we could spend a lifetime bending our minds around; gravity, global warming, black holes, the list goes on. But wouldn’t it be easier to understand just one central notion from which everything else flows?

In twenty-one short and engaging chapters, award winning writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown explains the one thing you need to know to understand some of the most important scientific ideas of our time.

Let’s take atoms, for example – what on earth are they? Well, if you start to think of them less like complex things you can’t see and more like the alphabet of nature, which in different configurations can make a rose, a galaxy or a newborn baby, they might start to feel a little more understandable. Relatable even! Or gravitational waves – they sound poetic, but why not consider them as the voice of space, vibrations on the drumskin of space-time – before delving into all their complexities?

Packed full of astounding facts, scientific history and the entertaining personalities at the heart of the most pivotal discoveries about the workings of our universe, The One Thing You Need to Know is an accessible guide to all the tricky stuff you’ve always wanted to understand more about.

My Review:

As someone who is extremely interested in science, The One Thing You Need To Know was absolutely fascinating to me. I enjoyed that the book focuses on many different areas of science rather than just one specific field, and I learnt quite a lot from it. I particular enjoyed the chapters about black holes, and The Big Bang, as these two subjects have always piqued my interest. I would say that this is one of those books that you would definitely benefit more from if you read it a couple of times though, as there is so much detail and information to take in, that I think a 2nd read would help you to fully absorb it all.

I give The One Thing You Need To Know a 4 star rating!

*Thank you to Love Books Tours and Michael O’Mara Books for my copy of the book, in exchange for an honest review*

About The Author:

Marcus Chown is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. Formerly a radio astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, he is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Brunel University.

His books include The Ascent of Gravity, which was The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year; The Magicians; Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand, What A Wonderful World; Quantum Theory Cannot Hurt You; Felicity Frobisher and the Three-Headed Aldebaran Dust Devil; and We Need to Talk to Kelvin and Afterglow of Creation, which were both runner-up for the Royal Society Book Prize. Marcus has also tried his hand at Apps and won The Bookseller Digital Innovation of the Year for Solar System for iPad.

Marcus was a regular guest on the BBC4 comedy-science show, It’s Only A Theory, with Andy Hamilton and Reginald D. Hunter, and often appears on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. He has appeared at a variety of events from the Cheltenham Literary Festival to the Sydney Writers Festival, from the National Theatre to the Wilderness Festival. And he has done stand-up comedy at a variety of venues from an upturned inflatable cow on London’s South Bank to a glass-bottomed boat in a shark tank at the Brighton Sealife Centre.

Marcus lives in London with his wife, a Macmillan nurse. Whereas she does a very socially useful job, Marcus writes about things that are of absolutely no use to man or beast! Can time run backwards? Are there an infinity of universes playing out all possible histories? Was our Universe made as a DIY experiment by extraterrestrials in another universe?

YOU CAN FIND MARCUS HERE:
Website, Twitter, Instagram, GoodReads

FOLLOW THE TOUR:

Disclaimer: My posts often include affiliate links, which means that I receive a small commission for any purchase made through my links, but with no extra charge to you. Thank you for supporting me and my blog.