Direct Use of Sun's Energy

First published in 1964, Direct Use of the Sun's Energy has held up very well. It is a broad survey of the techniques that were then extent in capturing and utilizing solar energy, ranging from practical low-technology applications such as heat storage and cooking to high-technology topics such as selective radiation surfaces and production of electricity by thermionic, thermoelectric and photovoltaic conversion. The book is full of accessible mathematics and line drawings, and the writing is clean and direct, without stilted prose or jargon. It requires no more than a high school education to read comfortably. The prices of petroleum based energy and silicon solar panels are off by a factor of 20 (in opposite directions), but that serves more as a reminder of the relevance of the books topic to todays world.