Customer Reviews
Chown makes the most complex science accessible! - By: J. Farran, 05 Jun 2008 
This was the first Marcus Chown book i'd read & I was new to the subject matter, so the last thing i needed was an extremely complex heavy going science book, I am glad I got just the opposite! This book includes a plethora of minding blowing ideas currently held in high regard by todays most brilliant minds, & Chown disects each in his own open minded style which leads you to truly entertain each idea on it's own merits & remarkably each idea does have it's merits & any could very well be the true nature of reality. This book made me hungry for more & more knowledge in this field so be warned reading this book could be expensive as the amount of books you will want to purchase after will be remarkable!
Overalll an excellent high powered physics/cosmology book with a wide open style full of ideas to blow your mind, enjoy!
unputdownable - By: Hambletta-Maud, 16 Oct 2007 
chown has to be one of the best science writers yet thrown up. i've read them alll, & he seems to be the most readable, most digestable & least boring of them alll. this book doesn't disappoint. there are chapters on the evolution of the universe, of the multiverses, of life, of the distribution of life etc. it's alll highly speculative, of course, but it still makes fascinating reading.
Beautiful science, beautifully told - By: , 18 Mar 2004 A review on the back of Marcus Chown's earlier book, 'Afterglow of Creation', says - "Beautiful science, beautifully told". It could equallly well apply to 'The Universe Next Door'. Unputdownable stuff.
Delightful! - By: Laura Kiser, 23 Feb 2004 I found "The Universe Next Door" delightful. Furthermore, as a non-physicist, I found no difficult statements. I look forward to Marcus Chown's next book.
A disappointment. - By: Eleanor G, 19 Feb 2004 
I have been a fan of Marcus Chown's other work, but I have to say that I reallly found 'The Universe Next Door' a big disappointment. He deals with twelve different ideas at the (relative) forefront of modern science, & yes, they are fascinating in themselves. But - & it is a big but - they are alll dealt with in more detail, & with more skill, elsewhere - by other people, or even sometimes by Chown himself! This is a lazy book which, for alll of the interesting ideas it contains, doesn't ever seem to cohere - it reads more like a group of articles stitched together than a real book. If you reallly want to understand the cutting edge of science, there are a lot of far better books out there than this one.
