Ravenous

I have never had the time to dive into Astronomy outside of the school setting but with my job, I gotta bone up my skills! I would love some suggestions on books (or hell, documentarys I can rent, movies I should see) that you think will not only be great for a beginner, but delve into the stories and most importantly history of man using or working with Astronomy. I am a huge lover of history so that's going to be my main connection and use during work programs. Thanks a lot to any here who helps out! I don't know what I would do without my otters

Josh-da-man

Cosmos by Carl Sagan, both the book and the tv series, are what you're looking for.

A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking.

Elegant Universe and Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. Also adapted as episodes of PBS's Nova series.

I would also suggest The Universe, a series that ran on the History Channel for several seasons.

Ravenous

Very Cool man, I am going to look into those and gear up to learn this stuff!

MLBFan24

I have the "Smithsonian - Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide" book. Extremely in-depth analysis of the solar system planets. They have maps of all the craters on each planet, that's how detailed they are. Also have analysis on the stars, galaxies, and the history of the universe. And miscellaneous topics like dark matter.

Sounds like your basic astronomy textbook, but probably 10x more detailed. And the photos are top notch. That's the crown jewel of this book. The pictures.