“National Geographic’s Picture Atlas of Our Universe”

May 18, 2024 2:34 PM

Nerd John Siracusa reminisced about a certain National Geographic book from his childhood and the reactions flooded in. Siracusa says the cover image is “burned in his brain,” more than 40 years later. Nearly everyone who responded also had fond memories of the book. One respondent said he had written a blog post about in 2009.

(I can remember poring over the text and illustrations, at once fantastical and educational, on the carpeted floor of my childhood bedroom. But it had left my mind until I saw this toot.)

posted by fruitslinger (21 comments total)

Wow, I own this one! Truly a cool book.
posted by tiny frying pan at 2:37 PM on May 18 [2 favorites]

Whelan did that book's interior art of aliens? Makes sense, good choice!

Hm, I wonder if it's in the storage closet in one of the boxes of books my parents offloaded.
posted by away for regrooving at 4:40 PM on May 18

Oh lordy, I remember that book from the library and the cool illustrations! Yes, Betelgeuse is Big
posted by BlueHorse at 4:42 PM on May 18

Oh neat, I can follow Whelan on Mastodon!
posted by egypturnash at 4:51 PM on May 18

Huh, I have no idea where I encountered that book (a classroom? a library?) but I absolutely remember the aliens. What a trip to bring that memory back.
posted by Wretch729 at 4:51 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

Still have mine somewhere-- I was completely obsessed with it. And I believe it came with a punch-out slide viewer in the box that I built and re-built dozens of times.
posted by eamondaly at 5:23 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

I had a few National Geographic books from this time period, including this one. I'm seriously jealous I didn't have Picture Atlas of Our Universe! It would have been right up my alley.
posted by mollweide at 5:33 PM on May 18

I had Don Dixon's "Universe" book, which if not stuffed with up-to-date scientific data had fairly evocative art.
posted by credulous at 6:16 PM on May 18

Sounds cool, but 60's Life Science Library was most awesome in my perspective.
posted by ovvl at 7:01 PM on May 18 [2 favorites]

Since I came of age a little earlier, the book for me was Facts And Figures.
posted by Rash at 7:13 PM on May 18

Wow, I had that as a kid in the 80s and loooved it. There was another one that was full of amazing paintings of alien spacecraft similar to the one on the cover, with evocative (to a kid, anyway) history-of-the-future essays, that I read to pieces too. I can’t remember the name but it was recently the subject of one of these “I had that too!!” threads somewhere.
posted by gottabefunky at 7:13 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

I own this as well, and wrote numerous book reports out of it in 4th grade.(second only to Roy Chapman Andrews' All About Dinosuars)
posted by KingEdRa at 7:26 PM on May 18

I have a copy of this book and it's one of the probably 5% of my previously-maybe-hoarder library that I made special point to keep when it was time to slim down to one carefully-curated bookshelf.
posted by tclark at 8:11 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

I got this book for Christmas in 1980, and still have it. I must have read through that book a thousand time when I was a kid.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:17 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

Yup, I had this book too; I think I got it for Christmas. And the DIY slide viewer, which was pretty awesome.
posted by idiotking at 8:22 PM on May 18

Another of my favourite National Geographic books from that era was Far-Out Facts.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:30 PM on May 18

Seeing that cover after all these years totally gave me a “critic eating Remy the Rat’s ratatouille” moment. Ordered a copy off Abe Books immediately. Showed it to my wife and she said “yeah! I loved that book! It was on Metafilter & I ordered a copy!”

Reaffirming my belief that I married well.
posted by turbowombat at 8:47 PM on May 18 [4 favorites]

Interesting... I don't remember the slide viewer. But I'm happy to see it resonated with people -- and not in a casual way. If you had it, you were INTO it, it seems. A little magic in that way.
posted by fruitslinger at 10:44 AM on May 19

You can look through the whole book digitally at archive.org.
posted by bjrubble at 11:35 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]

I ruined this book by how much I read it; literally, the pages started falling out for some reason. Such an awesome book.
posted by Aleyn at 5:27 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]

Oh, wow, bjrubble!
posted by fruitslinger at 10:55 AM on May 21