Books on Evolution and the Big Bang

[neoolong]

Does anybody know any good books on the aforementioned subjects? I have The Search for Life in the Universe by Donald Goldsmith and Tobias Owens. I also took Goldsmith's class. It's pretty good and covers both the creation of the universe as well as how life started and evolved on Earth. Then it links it to how and where we should look for life elsewhere in relation to the events that occurred to create life here. Any suggestions for books, besides Origin of Species; that one's pretty obvious of course.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I dont know any books but, if you have access to Tech TV they are running an interesting special on evolution. Its called "Evolution" , really original huh?

Anyway, Ive seen two of the episodes and they were good to watch.

[Durandal]

They're called textbooks.

[neoolong]

I know they are textbooks. I've read some really bad text books and some good ones as well. Any specific ones that are any good?

[Zoink]

The two authors that come to mind are:

Stephen Hawkings, "Brief History of Time"

Lee Smolin, "Three Roads to Quantum Gravity", "The Life of the Cosmos"

The September issue of Scientific American was devoted to "Time" (like timemachines, nature of time, time and the brain, etc) and like all issues is available at www.sciam.com for free (although I buy them anyway, cuz anyone putting free issues on the net deserves my money)! Previous issues, dealing with big bang, inflation, etc, are there too.

[Wicked Pilot]

Brief History of Time is of course a really good book. If you're looking for something more easier to understand, I would reccommend Stephen Hawking's Universe by David Filkin. It's a really good book that simplifies the history of astronomy from the ancient Greeks to todays knowledge. It also has lots of cool pictures.

[neoolong]

Thanks for the suggestions. See Durandal these are called helpful posts.