When physics professors do market research, I think it makes sense to pay attention. Russell Stannard wanted to publish an entertaining introduction to Relativity for youngsters. His first stop was the local library, where he looked through the date stamps to find out the post popular childrens’ books. He found that they had certain characteristics: illustrations, lots of dialogue, humour and short chapters. So that’s how he developed Black Holes and Uncle Albert. Courtesy of Jurgen Wolff.