I suggested we blog about science books today as it is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, and thought I would kick off with a brief tale of the science books that changed my life – literally.

And the funny thing is, I hadn’t realised it until today.

When I was… young… well, 13 or so, I was mad keen on astronomy. But in a completely hopeless way. I loved the Sky at Night (when I was allowed/tricked my way to be up late enough to watch it) and enjoyed reading about the stars. I was a hopeless astronomer, even though I was lucky enough to grow up where you could see the stars, I was terrible at finding them.

One, I am fairly sure it was, Christmas, my oldest brother gave me five astronomy books – all new, all bought from the same bookshop, each with a free bookmark from the shop.

I do not have them all now – in a previous move I ruthlessly expunged many books from my bookshelf (sorry Steve!), but I remember there being one I can’t remember the name of, another from Cambridge University Press that was very academic (way over my 13 year old head, even though I was very tall then), one called something like the Atlas of the Planets, The Atlas of the Solar System, and Patrick Moore’s History of Astronomy. And it is the last two that may be responsible for where I am today. They were just at the upper end of what I could read as a teenager – the two about the planets had plenty of pictures, maps and facts about our solar system (which I think was my favourite part of astronomy), and Patrick’s book was clear, comprehensive, and not too detailed.

Cut to several years later and I was helping out at the Edinburgh Science Festival, running a web cafe as the Computer Science department’s contribution to Edinburgh University’s building full of science events and activities. This was the week, the building, the experience that properly introduced me to the field of science communication, and that made me think I could work in it. We were next to the Astronomy department’s inflatable planetarium. And one day, the astronomy students didn’t turn up to do their show. So me and my fellow Computer Science helper (and friend) Stuart did it, as we were both fans of astronomy.

Now, it wasn’t entirely down to those books that I could do that show – I distinctly remember sitting on the loo five minutes before our first show, desperately reading the notes/script that had been left behind by one of the previous presenters. But if I hadn’t been encouraged to pursue astronomy, and read those (and other books), would I have tried?

And certainly, when I joined the University’s SciFun science roadshow project, to give astronomy talks, the books came in handy – I distinctly remember sitting up in bed late one night, swotting up on comets from Patrick’s book, as, oh, I think Temple-Tuttle or Hale-Bopp was in the news in the week I was giving the talks. I’ve just pulled the book off the shelf, and the bookmark (sadly not the same one as when I was given it) was in a section about Saturn, probably from another revision session.

Footnote: World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is on a different day from World Book Day in the rest of the world, as the organisers of World Book Day UK wanted to miss the school holidays.