W.W. Norton & Company, Inc

MBR Bookwatch, March, 2005 by Diane C. Donovan

W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110

1-800-233-4830 www.wwnorton.com

Two wonderful books on exploration and discovery are recommended not just for school holdings; but for general interest readers choosing from public library holdings. Michio Kaku's Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time (039305165X, $22.95) tells how Einstein's ideas changed everyday understanding of the nature of space and time itself. Theoretical physicist and author Kaku provides a fine survey of the universe as Einstein saw it, considering the foundations of his theories and how he thought in terms of simple pictures. It's this focus on how he envisioned space and time which makes EINSTEIN'S COSMOS so accessible to lay audiences with little physics background. Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation (0393050734, $22.95) by Alan Gurney provides an eye-opening survey of the history of the magnetic compass, which for a thousand years was the only instrument sailors used for navigation. A chronological order lends interest and logic to this survey of the compass and navigational challenges.