I’ve often thought that, if there was an area of knowledge that I could suddenly gain understanding and excel in, it would be physics and astronomy.

This goes back a bit, to the days when I was fascinated with the planets. When I was 8 or so, I received a book about the beings that inhabit different planets. As it turns out, this book was fiction. I didn’t realize that, and was amazed and delighted that the book gave me numerical call signs to actually make contact with the planets–yes, really!! I spent many hours in my room, on the floor facing the window, with my walkie-talkie in hand, patiently tapping out (in Morse code, of course) these call signs. Hours. To no avail. No matter, though, I moved on…I had a period of fascination with Mars, and ordered as many books from the Weekly Reader as I could get my hands on. Then movies about space and aliens and time travel and the future. Books about string theory (started, rarely finished) and the cosmos. Pictures from the Hubble.

As it currently stands, I have a really hard time grasping some (most) of the basic principles, but I am still fascinated by it all. Is the universe expanding? What happened before the Big Bang? What is at the bottom/on the other side of a black hole (a thing we know exists not because we see it, but by the disappearance of everything else around it, that is crazy!)? Do all points in time really exist at the same time, all the time, and if so, can I somehow go back to the 23-year-old me and say ‘hey, maybe don’t take in 8 cats’? And most importantly, the question that comes to my mind whenever I read something about some distant star, why are we just now seeing the light from something that happened millions of years ago, and does the thing even exist anymore?? I don’t understand Einstein’s theories, I can’t really visualize multiple dimensions, and light years are mind-boggling. I just can’t.

Imagine my pleasure upon discovering The Universe: an illustrated history of astronomy. Pictures! Concise explanations! A fold-out timeline! 100 brief and interesting tidbits about astronomy explained for someone like me. If you’re like me, and you desperately want to ponder the mysterious stars and expanse of space and matter, but just can’t quite manage it on your own, you’ll want this book. Or, if you’re a little more advanced than I, but want something beautiful and very interesting to read, you just might want it as well.

I don’t have to tell you it’s hot…and dry. Honestly, all I can think about is the water temperature off of the National Seashore in Cape Cod (in the sixties). But being landlocked in Iowa doesn’t mean you can’t turn your thoughts to the ocean in less torturous ways by checking out these new books.

Beyond the blue horizon: how the earliest mariners unlocked the secrets of the oceans by Brian Fagan

From the ancient Polynesians to the Vikings, Fagan goes beyond Columbus and Magellan to find the earliest explorers of the oceans and how their jump from the shore changed civilization.

Soundings: the story of the remarkable woman who mapped the ocean floor by Hali Felt.

Soundings explores how Marie Tharp drafted the first comprehensive map of the ocean floor by interpreting sonar pings that measured ocean depths in the 1950′s.  Her work provided huge insight into continental drift and plate tectonics.

In pursuit of giants: one man’s global search for the last of the great fish by Matt Rigney

On the darker side of the ocean, Rigney travels around the globe to explain why the giant fishes (bluefin tuna, marlin, and swordfish) are disappearing and what is being done to save them.

You can find these and other new nonfiction books at the top of the stairs on the second floor. To see what else is new in nonfiction, check out this week’s list.

And remember, oceans may contain water, but as the Mariner says, “Water, water every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.”

The transistor. The communications satellite. The coaxial cable. The fiber optics cable.  The integrated circuit. The solar cell. The cell phone. The charge-coupled device. Stereo recording. High frequency radar. C programming language. C++.  UNIX.  Information theory. And of course, the Picturephone. These technological innovations and ideas (and much, much more) came out of one place: Bell Labs.

In The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, Jon Gertner explores the people who made AT&T the most inventive company in the 20th Century. From Claude Shannon to Bill Shockley, Bell Labs was able to recruit the brightest young minds in physics, math, engineering, and chemistry to make the telephone system universal, but also better and cheaper. Gertner provides an accessible, well-paced history of Bell Labs.  However, he is also concerned with how innovation happens. What made Bell Labs so special? How was the research wing of ONE company able to transform our world so drastically?

After finishing The Idea Factory, I’m left with: “What would the world look like today without Bell Labs?”  I wonder if we would still answer the phone with “ahoy-hoy” and watch what we say because Mrs. McGregor from down the street is listening in.  More than that, would you be able to watch Game of Thrones or text your friend or read this review on your computer (let alone your phone or tablet)? Something to think about when you pick up The Idea Factory.