Books like A Brief History of Time

If A Brief History of Time stayed with you, these share its feel: curiosity, awe and time. Each comes with a real page, so you can tell in a minute.

About A Brief History of Time · Stephen W. Hawking

1.Cosmos

Carl Sagan, 1980

Also awe and wonder. A lyrical journey through the stars and deep time that asks what it means to be small in a universe of infinite complexity.

There is no God-Creator, but there is the Cosmos, which creates suns, planets and living beings. There is no omnipotent God, but there is the Universe, which governs the fates of all celestial bodies and their inhabitants. There are no sons of God, but there are mature and thus rational and perfect sons of the Cosmos. There are no personal gods, but there are elected leaders of planets, solar systems, stellar groups, milky ways, islands of ether and the whole Cosmos. There is no Christ, but there is a brilliant man and a greater teacher of mankind.

Excerpt from Cosmos, Carl Sagan, Ballantine Books 1980. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
2.Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson, 2011

Also curiosity and awe. The authorized life of Apple's cofounder, built from years of interviews with a man who demanded perfection and often got it.

From: Steve JobsTo: Steve JobsSubject:Date: September 2, 2010, 11:08 p.m.I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.I do not make any of my own clothing.I speak a language I did not invent or refine.I did not discover the mathematics I use.I am protected by freedoms and laws I did not conceive of or legislate, and do not enforce or adjudicate.I am moved by music I did not create myself.When I needed medical attention, I was helpless to help myself survive.I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.Sent from my iPad

Excerpt from Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson 2011. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
3.The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Rebecca Skloot, 2010

Also awe and curiosity. A young journalist chases the woman behind the first immortal human cells and finds a family still living with what science took without asking.

I’ve spent years staring at that photo, wondering what kind of life she led, what happened to her children, and what she’d think about cells from her cervix living on forever—bought, sold, packaged, and shipped by the trillions to laboratories around the world. I’ve tried to imagine how she’d feel knowing that her cells went up in the first space missions to see what would happen to human cells in zero gravity, or that they helped with some of the most important advances in medicine: the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization. I’m pretty sure that she—like most of us—would be shocked to hear that there are trillions more of her cells growing in laboratories now than there ever were in her body.

Excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot, Crown 2010. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
4.Crossing the Threshold of Hope

John Paul II, 1994

Also freedom and awe. A pope answers the questions people actually ask about suffering, hope, evil and faith, in a direct book-length interview rather than a formal encyclical.

Resurrection of the body is to be preceded by a judgment passed upon the works of charity, fulfilled or neglected. As a result of this judgement, the just are destined to eternal life. There is a destination to eternal damnation as well, which consists in the ultimate rejection of God, the ultimate break of the communion with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Here, it is not so much God who rejects man, but man who rejects God.

Excerpt from Crossing the Threshold of Hope, John Paul II, Knopf 1994. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
5.My First Summer in the Sierra

John Muir, 1911

Also wonder and awe. A young Scot joins a sheep drive into the high Sierra in 1869 and writes daily, ecstatic journal entries about granite, light and water, as if seeing mountains for the first time.

No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. This quick, inevitable interest attaching to everything seems marvelous until the hand of God becomes visible; then it seems reasonable that what interests Him may well interest us. When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell, and we feel like stopping to speak to the plants and animals as friendly fellow mountaineers.
6.John Adams

David McCullough, 2001

Also freedom and curiosity. The life of a prickly, eloquent founder, told through the letters he and Abigail exchanged while they helped invent a country.

As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760–1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington.

Excerpt from John Adams, David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, Limited 2001. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
7.The Problems of Philosophy

Bertrand Russell, 1912

Also curiosity and wonder. A short, clear tour of the questions underneath everything: whether the table is really there, why the sun should rise tomorrow, what we can know. Written for readers with no philosophy background.
8.The Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin, 1839

Also curiosity and wonder. A young naturalist's five-year journey round the world, from jungle to glacier to coral atoll, written with curiosity and the dry humor of someone seeing everything for the first time.
9.Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer, 1996

Also awe and freedom. A young man gives away his money and walks into the Alaska bush; the book follows the dream and the questions it leaves.
10.In Search of Excellence

Thomas J. Peters, 1982

Also curiosity and ambition. A field guide to why the best-run companies obsess over values as much as strategy—still useful for anyone building a team, a brand, or a career.
11.Unbroken

Laura Hillenbrand, 2010

Also awe and wonder. A champion runner, a wartime bomber crash, and a fight to survive the Pacific—and the cruelty that follows.
12.The Natural History of Selborne

Gilbert White, 1789

Also wonder and curiosity. A country clergyman spends forty years watching the birds, worms, echoes and weather of one Hampshire parish, and writes it all down in letters of disarming charm.