Books › What If? › Books like it
If you loved
Books like What If?
A delightful exercise in taking the most ridiculous questions imaginable and answering them with rigorous, cheerfully apocalyptic science. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with What If?.
- playful
- inquisitive
- lighthearted
- cheerfully apocalyptic
- 01
How To
Randall Munroe
A delightfully overcomplicated manual that uses extreme, apocalyptic physics to solve the most mundane of daily problems.
- 02
Thing Explainer
Randall Munroe
A delightfully constrained, blueprint-filled journey that strips away jargon to reveal the simple mechanics of the world.
- 03
Soonish
Kelly Weinersmith
A hilarious, comic-studded joyride through the weird, wild, and highly improbable technologies of tomorrow.
- 04
Physics of the Impossible
Michio Kaku · 2008
A mind-expanding bridge between the wild imagination of science fiction and the rigorous frontiers of theoretical physics.
- 05
Humble Pi
Matt Parker
A hilarious, eye-opening tour through the catastrophic and comical consequences of getting the math wrong.
- 06
A City on Mars
Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith
A hilarious, reality-checking splash of cold water on the sci-fi dream of escaping Earth's problems.
- 07
The cartoon guide to physics
Larry Gonick · 1991
A playful, highly visual journey that transforms complex scientific laws into clear, accessible understanding.
- 08
Our Mathematical Universe
Max Tegmark
A dizzying, enthusiastic plunge into the radical idea that the cosmos isn't just described by math, but is made of it.
- 09
We Have No Idea
Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson
A joyful, cartoon-illustrated romp through the massive, yawning gaps in our understanding of the cosmos.
- 10
Why does e=mc2
Brian Cox · 2009
An exhilarating, accessible journey into the fundamental fabric of space, time, and reality.
- 11
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
A joyful, eye-opening tour through the hidden miracles of the everyday objects we touch, use, and ignore.
- 12
Seveneves
Neal Stephenson
A meticulously engineered, high-stakes thought experiment about the end of the world and the grueling, orbital mechanics of human survival.
