Mars: Uncovering the Secrets of the Red Planet

Wonder and amazement await all who leaf through this extraordinary new book about the human exploration of Mars. It's not the foreword by Golombek, chief project scientist of the Pathfinder Mission, that will galvanize readers, although he does provide a brief, firsthand (and slightly technical) account of the Pathfinder Mission, which landed successfully on the Red Planet in 1997. Nor is it the exemplary text by Raeburn, a senior editor at Business Week, which does clarify difficult technical and scientific concepts while injecting welcome notes of drama, including a gripping history of our encounters with Mars. Instead, it's the astonishing and unprecedented array of illustrations, mostly photographs, that make this book a keeper. Never before has Mars, the most mysterious and resonant of planets, been brought with such vivid immediacy to human eyes; and in an inspired stroke, the book includes, in addition to stunning 2-D photos, 3-D panoramas of the Martian landscape, viewable through accompanying glasses. For anyone who has ever gazed up at the heavens in awe, this is a book to treasure. 135-plus full-color photos. (Aug.)