Yes, the NY Times recommends this book as well, but don't let that stop you from checking it out.
Nine Familiar Planets, Now With Personality-Plus - New York Times
"The Planets" is a grab bag of fascinating facts... Because the thick carbon-dioxide clouds that swathe Venus allow only red light to penetrate, "the landscape presents itself as a monochrome in the sepia tones of old photographs." Seismologists can actually hear Earth's iron-nickel core turning inside the still-molten outer core, at a speed almost one second a day faster than the rest of the planet. When spring arrives on Mars, white frost disappears, as if by magic, back into the carbon-dioxide atmosphere whence it came, without pausing to melt.
The gee-whiz factor looms large, in other words. But along the way Ms. Sobel manages to sneak in a coherent account of how each planet was discovered and named, how it moves in the solar system, and what puzzles remain for scientists to solve. She does not shy away from terms like magnetosphere or regolith. But she makes sure to translate numbers and physical data into images that seize the imagination."
An excellent review of an excellent book.
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