'Watch the stars, and from them learn' - advice from Albert Einstein, a chap who knew a thing or two.

But where do you even start? Look up on a clear, dark evening and you'll be confronted by thousands of stars, scattered apparently at random. Okay, you can always learn the patterns of the constellations and even the names of individual stars, but what does that tell you about the Universe itself? If only there was some way of focusing on the important ones...

The cosmos is a big place, with even the closest stars so far away that the idea of visiting them is a distant dream. But by studying the weak rays of starlight that make it to Earth, astronomers can build up a surprisingly complete picture of the way the universe works. And fortunately, a small handful of stars just love to hog the limelight. Either by virtue of their proximity, their brightness, or their odd behaviour, they have drawn astronomers' attention again and again, providing key evidence for our understanding of the heavens.

The History of the Universe in 21 Stars provides a key to the cosmos for the curious, the busy and the bewildered. It offers a complete introduction to the heavens through the tales of these celestial superstars and tells the intriguing, inspiring and sometimes just plain odd story of how stargazers unravelled the mysteries of the universe.