12 Great Irish Books You Should Read This Year
How many of you know that James Joyce was/is an Irish writer, not British? Or similarly, U2 and Snow Patrol are Irish bands, not British
Every now and then, I write about topics that I think can spark imagination, inspire self-reflection, and appreciation of our world and beyond. In the past, I have covered topics like spiritual books, self-development books, and books about plants.
This time, I’ve been thinking about quantum theory books. Why? Because it inspires us to imagine beyond what we see and question how reality actually works.
In some ways, it also overlaps with spirituality, as both try to find the unseen and ask big questions about existence, connection, and meaning. That’s why this topic felt like a good idea.
Now, quantum theory may sound like a frightening subject to you. But don’t worry, as I’m not going to talk about any academic work. Instead, I have selected novels and quantum theory books for beginners to spark your interest.
Chad Orzel is a physics professor at Union College and a science author. He is famous for breaking down difficult physics topics for general readers. He regularly writes for Forbes and Physics World. And he also runs a Substack newsletter.
This is one of his famous quantum theory books. The idea is quite unique as Orzel explains quantum physics to his dog, Emmy. He introduces major quantum concepts like particle-wave duality, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and quantum tunneling.
And Emmy asks questions like “Can I walk through walls to get to squirrels faster?” He then answers how quantum behaviors differ from our everyday experiences. Later in the book, he also explains virtual particles, quantum entanglement, etc.
Despite the complexity, he keeps the explanations clear by using Emmy’s curiosity as a constant guide. This results in the unpacking of quantum theories without formulas, with plenty of examples.
Alan Lightman is a physicist and science writer affiliated with MIT. With a background in theoretical physics and creative writing, he brings a unique perspective to his storytelling. Lightman is one of the few people who have had a faculty position in both the sciences and the humanities at MIT.
Einstein’s Dreams is one of his great books about quantum theory that happened in Switzerland in 1905. Einstein is a young patent clerk, newly married and short on money, but deep in thought. As he works on his Theory of Special Relativity, he begins to dream each night about different versions of time.
In one dream, time moves in circles. In another, it stands still. In another, people live only one day. These variations explore how changes in time would reshape society, memory, relationships, and meaning.
Einstein’s Dreams has sold over a million copies worldwide. It’s been adapted for many stage performances in the United States.
Blake Crouch is one of the best-selling American science fiction authors. He’s best known for the Wayward Pines series and Dark Matter. Most of his works ask questions about identity, reality, and the impact of technology.
Jason Dessen is a physics professor who lives a simple life with his wife and son. One night, someone abducts him and he wakes up in a different version of life. In this reality, he’s a celebrated scientist who has discovered how to travel between parallel universes using a device.
But he quickly realizes that the machine he built can open doors to countless alternate realities, where each decision has created different versions of life. As he fights to return to his family, he must confront different versions of himself.
It is one of the best books on quantum theory for using concepts of quantum entanglement and the multiverse. Dark Matter has also been adopted into a successful Apple TV+ series.
Stephen Hawking was/is one of the most influential scientists of our time. At the age of 21, he was diagnosed with ALS, but that didn’t stop him from becoming one of the greatest theoretical physicists, cosmologists, and writers. He made key contributions to our understanding of black holes, relativity, and quantum gravity.
A Brief History of Time is one of the great quantum theory books for beginners about the nature of space, time, and the universe. Hawking explains complex topics like the Big Bang, black holes, and the nature of time in easily understandable language.
He explains how quantum mechanics and general relativity both describe our universe but still clash, especially at extremes like black holes and the moment of the Big Bang.
There’s also a discussion of quantum theory concepts such as uncertainty and wave-particle duality. He also discusses Hawking radiation—his prediction that black holes can emit energy.
One of the most important discussions is the possibility of a “theory of everything,” a single framework that can unite quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of gravity. With over 25 million copies sold, it remains one of the best quantum theory books.
The Jazz of Physics is one of the unique books about quantum theory on our list. It is written by Stephon Alexander, who is a theoretical physicist at Brown University. Besides being a scientist, he’s also an accomplished jazz saxophonist. So, this is a unique perspective blending physics with music.
The Jazz of Physics finds connections between jazz and modern physics. Alexander explains how vibration, resonance, and harmonic structures in music mirror fundamental concepts in physics, like string theory and wave-particle duality.
He shows how ancient and modern thinkers, from Pythagoras to Einstein, have viewed the universe as a kind of musical structure. Alexander uses music as a metaphor to explain difficult concepts like quantum oscillations, symmetry, and the search for a unified theory.
He also shares his journey as a Black scientist from Trinidad and Tobago. Here’s his Tedx talk on music and physics. Since we are talking about jazz, you should also check the best jazz albums.
Benjamin Labatut is an author from Chile. Although he was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, he grew up in Latin America and writes in Spanish. When We Cease to Understand the World is one of his best books on quantum theory, but in an unconventional way.
This book is not a traditional novel. Instead, it’s a mix of historical fact and fictional storytelling about the 20th-century scientists who shaped modern physics and mathematics. It has chapters on Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Karl Schwarzschild. These scientists advanced quantum theory, relativity, and atomic energy.
The interesting aspect is the focus on writers’ personal lives and their uncertainty, paradox, and ethical crises. For example, the Heisenberg chapter discusses tensions between Nazi Germany, uncertainty principles, and the inner life of a brilliant mind.
The book was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature. Since it was written in Spanish, it’s always a great idea to learn Spanish and read in the original language.
Liu Cixin is one of China’s most celebrated science fiction writers. The Three-Body Problem is the first book in his Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. It was originally published in 2008. The Three-Body Problem also has a Chinese and a Netflix TV series.
The novel opens during China’s Cultural Revolution. It follows Ye Wenjie, an astrophysicist who becomes part of a secret military project. One day, Wenjie sends a message, which is received by an alien civilization, the Trisolarans.
These aliens live on a planet in an unstable three-sun system. On this planet, physics behaves unpredictably as Cixin uses chaos theory, quantum uncertainty, and nonlinear systems to plot a story.
The story builds into a global crisis as the truth about the Trisolarans emerges.
The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, making it one of the best quantum theory books. You should also explore more Chinese books to read.
Richard P. Feynman was a theoretical physicist who is known for his work in quantum electrodynamics (QED). He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He has a great ability to simplify complex scientific ideas. And that’s why he became a cultural icon through books and lectures.
This quantum physics book is actually a series of four lectures Feynman gave in 1983 for a general audience. In these lectures, he explains how light behaves when it reflects, refracts, or interacts with matter. It is a phenomenon that classical physics struggled to explain, while QED did.
He illustrates how photons and electrons operate at quantum levels using his famous “sum over paths” method, showing that particles don’t take a single route but all possible ones simultaneously.
Through visual Feynman diagrams, he explains how probabilities replace certainties in quantum mechanics. The book remains one of the best quantum theory books for beginners.
Andy Weir is one of the best sci-fi writers, especially famous for The Martian. Weir writes science fiction that leans heavily on real-world physics and problem-solving. Project Hail Mary is his third science fiction novel, with a thrilling survival story in space.
Ryland Grace is a school teacher-turned-astronaut who wakes up on a spaceship with no memory and quickly realizes he’s humanity’s last hope. Earth is in crisis due to a mysterious Astrophage, a microorganism that’s dimming the sun. His mission is to figure out how to stop it.
As he begins to recover his memory, he pieces together why he’s on the ship and how the mission was set up. During the journey, he meets Rocky, an intelligent alien from another star system. Despite their differences, they form a powerful alliance to save their planets through science-driven teamwork.
Project Hail Mary is also being adapted into a movie starring Ryan Gosling. The movie may come out in March 2026.
Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist from Italy. He’s one of the founders of loop quantum gravity, a theory that attempts to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. Apart from that, he writes about science in an easy way. This is one of his best books about quantum theory.
The book is about modern physics’s understanding of the nature of time. He explains how our everyday experience of time doesn’t hold up under quantum theory and relativity. As per him, time emerges from a timeless universe, and quantum mechanics shapes our sense of it.
Rovelli uses philosophy and physics to challenge our assumptions. He discusses how time disappears at the smallest scales of quantum events. And most interestingly, how reality may not have a unified “now.” Instead, time could be a human-centric approximation of how we interact with the universe.
The Order of Time was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize. It remains a great quantum physics book for its focus on less mechanical aspects of physics. Need more inspirational writers from Italy? Check the best Italian books.
Quantum theory is a vast and mind-bending subject with strange ideas that challenge how we see reality. In this list, I’ve shared quantum theory books that cover different aspects of quantum theory, like time, gravity, light, and uncertainty, without getting too technical.
It’s no wonder that the list of books about quantum theory includes fiction and nonfiction works. The idea is to make the reading fun and engaging, and I hope this list fulfills that purpose.
If you have any recommendations for quantum theory books for beginners, please share!
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