What a great book with a whole lot of information, especially if you have the type of mind (which I do not) that can amass all the information and make enough sense of it, so that you might actually comprehend all that science!

"Within the first second, superhot gas - referred to as a plasma - a substance we will discuss often because the Sun is made of it - may have cooled enough for particles called quarks (Ah, so this is what they are) that had condensed out of the energy to combine and form protons and neutrons the building blocks of atoms. After about three (how does he know this?) minutes, a small portion of the neutrons bonded with protons.......Three to four hundred thousand years passed in this way, with the hot plasma eventually cooling and allowing the and allowing atomic nuclei to hold onto electrons to make hydrogen and helium."

And so it went..... What I actually did comprehend was all the Creation 'myths" and that is what I enjoyed... There was also a photograph of a petroglyph: "The oldest recorded solar eclipse? 3340 BC"

As for the remainder of the book.... I basically have no idea what it was about or what it meant, which is why I am not a science major. ( )

An enjoyable review of science of the sun and also the history of our understanding of the sun including mythological and religious aspects. Books in this genre run the risk of being very dry or of having the author desperately shoehorning all the factoids ever uncovered into one book. This book by contrast moves along deftly, tying all the disparate strands together. Plus it has some attractive color pictures of the sun. ( )