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If you loved
Books like The age of wonder
A sweeping, luminous journey into the minds of the dreamers and explorers who married poetry with the scientific method. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with The age of wonder.
- awe-inspiring
- intellectually stimulating
- luminous
- atmospheric
- 01
The Day the Universe Changed
Burke, James · 1985
A dizzying, exhilarating ride through the hidden connections and paradigm shifts that built the modern mind.
- 02
A Really Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
A delightfully witty, bite-sized tour of the cosmos that makes the mind-boggling scale of science feel like a fun conversation with a very smart friend.
- 03
Periodic Tales
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
A globe-trotting, history-hopping cabinet of curiosities that reveals the hidden personalities of the universe's building blocks.
- 04
Invention of air
Steven Johnson · 2009
A thrilling intellectual treasure hunt that connects the discovery of oxygen to the founding of a nation.
- 05
Isaac Newton
James Gleick · 2003
An elegant, atmospheric plunge into the obsessive and brilliant mind that dragged humanity out of the dark ages and into the light of modern physics.
- 06
The Alchemy of Air
Thomas Hager · 2008
A gripping, tragic narrative history about the brilliant minds who pulled bread from the air and inadvertently unleashed a century of unprecedented destruction.
- 07
The Last Man Who Knew Everything
Andrew Robinson · 2005
An illuminating journey into the mind of a forgotten polymath whose boundless curiosity reshaped our understanding of the world.
- 08
The Invention of Nature
Andrea Wulf
A sweeping, globe-trotting intellectual adventure that fundamentally changes how you look at the natural world.
- 09
The map that changed the world
Simon Winchester · 2001
An earthy, atmospheric journey into the mind of an underdog who looked at the dirt beneath his feet and saw the deep history of the world.
- 10
The man who loved China
Simon Winchester · 2008
A sumptuous, globe-trotting biography that captures the thrill of intellectual obsession and the romance of uncovering a civilization's forgotten brilliance.
- 11
The strangest man
Graham Farmelo
An illuminating journey into the brilliant, contradictory mind of one of modern science's most enigmatic figures.
- 12
The great equations
Robert P. Crease · 2009
A panoramic journey through the history of science that treats mathematical equations as profound works of art.











