I need more space

Can you guess which booksellers recently saw Project Hail Mary? I keep thinking about that tweet that said "more like Project Holy Moly what a good movie." Too right! It had the perfect laugh-to-cry ratio with its heartfelt exploration of bravery, hope, and above all, friendship. Oh and there's also insane visuals and a significant Harry Styles reference. What more could you ask for, question?

Before I knew I wanted to work in words and books, I wanted to be an astronaut. While I can't say Project Hail Mary reignited my inner 5-year-old's chosen career passion (the scope of the universe is completely terrifying), what I can say is that it's made me a lot more curious about science and space stories #womeninstem. 

What I thought might be a bit of a niche subject matter, where I'd struggle to find books that fit the bill, became a fountain of incredible options as soon as I leaned into that curiosity. Turns out, I've been missing out on so many incredible fiction and non-fiction space books! Check out everything I've added to my TBR:

Space Fiction

Celestial Lights by Cecile Pin

January 28, 1986: moments after launch, the Challenger shuttle falls from the sky. At the same time, in a small English village, Oliver Ines is born.

Ollie spends his childhood in a bedroom covered in glow-in-the-dark wallpaper, bearing the planets and stars. Decades later, he has become one of the most renowned astronauts of his time. When an enterprising billionaire approaches him to lead a landmark, ten-year mission to the distant moon, Europa, Ollie cannot resist the call of history.

As the mission advances deeper into uncharted territory, Ollie finds himself retreating into the past: his school days and years in the navy, relationships found and lost, becoming a husband and father. But will the world he remembers still be waiting for him when he returns? Celestial Lights is a breathtaking story of fate, love, and sacrifice, that questions what we owe ourselves and our loved ones, when our ambitions and loyalties collide. 

Interesting facts about Space by Emily Austin

Enid is many things: lesbian, serial dater, deaf in one ear, space obsessive, true crime fanatic.

When she's not listening to grizzly murder podcasts, she's managing her crippling phobia of bald people and trying hard not to think about her mortifying teenage years - which is hard, when she's lost the password to her old YouTube account and the (many) vlogs that her teen self once uploaded. She's worried about herself, her depressive mother, and what the deal is with gender reveal parties.

But as Enid fumbles her way through her first serious relationship and navigates a new family life with her estranged half-sisters, she starts to worry that someone is following her. As her paranoia spirals out of control, Enid must contend with her mounting suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her...

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

An epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits. 

In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond; mission specialists John Griffin and Lydia Danes; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

To be Taught, if fortunate by becky chambers 

At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations.

They can produce antifreeze in sub-zero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to explore neighbouring exoplanets long suspected to harbour life. Ariadne is one such explorer.

On a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds fifteen light-years from Earth, she and her fellow crewmates sleep while in transit, and wake each time with different features. But as they shift through both form and time, life back on Earth has also changed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the wonders and dangers of her journey, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valentine

A century ago, intelligent space-faring life was nearly destroyed during the Sentience Wars. To bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity and understanding, the Metagalactic Grand Prix was created. Part concert, part contest, all extravaganza, species far and wide gather to compete in feats of song, dance and/or whatever facsimile of these can be performed by various creatures who may or may not possess, in the traditional sense, feet, mouths, larynxes or faces.

This year, humankind has discovered that it must fight for its destiny not with diplomacy, gunships and stoic councils - but with glitter, lipstick and electric guitars.

A washed-up glam-rock trio from London, Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, has been chosen to represent humanity on the greatest stage in the galaxy. The fate of Earth lies in their ability to ROCK.

Space Non-Fiction

A brief history of black holes by Dr Becky Smethurst 

Right now, you are orbiting a black hole. The Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the centre of the Milky Way: a supermassive black hole, the strangest and most misunderstood phenomenon in the galaxy.

In this cosmic tale of discovery, Dr Becky Smethurst takes us from the earliest observations of the universe and the collapse of massive stars, to the iconic first photographs of a black hole and her own published findings. She explains why black holes aren't really 'black', that you never ever want to be 'spaghettified', how black holes are more like sofa cushions than hoovers and why, beyond the event horizon, the future is a direction in space rather than in time.

Told with humour and wisdom, this captivating book describes the secrets behind the most profound questions about our universe - all hidden inside black holes.

Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

Set amid the civil rights movement, the never-before-told true story of NASA's African-American female mathematicians who played a crucial role in America's space program.

Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of professionals worked as 'Human Computers', calculating the flight paths that would enable these historic achievements. Among these were a coterie of bright, talented African-American women.

Segregated from their white counterparts, these 'colored computers' used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space. Moving from World War II through NASA's golden age, touching on the civil rights era, the Space Race, the Cold War, and the women's rights movement, Hidden Figures interweaves a rich history of mankind's greatest adventure with the intimate stories of five courageous women whose work forever changed the world.

The Meteorites by Helen Gordon

From your window you can see the stars and distant planets: light years away, it's easy to think that our existences and theirs will never intersect.

Yet meteorites - mysterious, irregular rocks of sometimes immense value - connect us with the vastness of the universe. They may have brought the first life to our planet, and today they still reveal extraordinary scientific insights.

Helen Gordon reveals the fascinating stories of fallen meteorites and the lives they've touched - from collectors to kings, scientists to farmers. She meets amateur astronomers and gem dealers, goes meteorite hunting across rooftops and learns what objects moving through space can tell us about the fragility of life on Earth.

Alien Earths by Lisa Kaltenegger 

For thousands of years, humans have wondered whether we're alone in the cosmos. Now, for the first time, we have the technology to investigate.

The question should have an obvious answer: yes or no. But once you try to find life elsewhere, you realize it is not so simple. How do you find it over cosmic distances? What actually is life?Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger works from Carl Sagan’s former office at Cornell University, where she built a team of tenacious scientists from many disciplines to find life on faraway worlds, using Earth’s diverse biosphere and its history as a Rosetta Stone.

With infectious enthusiasm, she provides an eye-opening insider’s guide to the most unusual exoplanets that have shaken our worldview – planets covered in oceans of lava, lonely wanderers lost in space, and others with more than one sun in their sky – as well as the best contenders for Alien Earths. She also shows how close imagined scifi worlds come to reality. We live in an incredible new epoch of exploration.

A city on Mars by Dr. Kelly Weinersmith & Zach Weinersmith

Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away - no climate change, no war, no Twitter - beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it?

Bestselling authors Dr. Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of original research, and interviews with leading space scientists, engineers and legal experts, they aren't so sure it's a good idea.

Space tech and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the deep knowledge needed to have space-kids, build space-farms and create space nations in a way that doesn't spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won't create a nightmare, both for settlers and the people they leave behind.