C. Renee James (SPRING, TX) is a professor of physics and astronomy at Sam Houston State University. She is the author of Science Unshackled: How Obscure, Abstract, Seemingly Useless Scientific Research Turned Out to Be the Basis for Modern Life and Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Probably Took for Granted.
Like a pulsar, the book is at times dense, but it also dazzles. It recasts modern astronomy as the search for transient, explosive events, and the messages they contain if only we can decode them. —New York Times Book Review The characters we meet along the way—from binary stars to black holes—are painted with rich and lively prose, with James detailing the range of clues astronomers use to study these strange objects, including neutrinos, gamma-ray bursts and even tree rings. —Physics World A fascinating guide to the Universe's most violent events, but also an intriguing look under the bonnet of modern science. —BBC Sky at Night Magazine