It was a story about space – Apollo 13 – which first hooked Sheila Kanani, and now, decades later, after achieving a PhD in Saturn's magnetosphere and working as an outreach officer for the Royal Astronomical Society, she has made a career of weaving together the science and tales of the stars.

In The Starspotter's Guide, her first book for adults, Sheila pulls together the rich tapestry of the night sky for the armchair stargazer, sharing the stories that cultures across the world have told about the stars for millennia – and how these have shaped our exploration and understanding of the Earth, from astrologers in ancient India using the stars to calculate the length of the year, to Polynesian explorers using them to navigate far beyond their homes. And now, as our knowledge expands about the endless expanse above us – such as what the stars actually are – Sheila takes us on a journey through what you'd see if you could jump on a spacecraft and explore these galaxies yourself.

In this endlessly informative and persuasively interesting miscellany of the night sky, Dr Sheila Kanani takes us on a journey through the cosmos and through the human experience of the stars throughout the ages that will have you rushing outside and looking up, searching for the curve of the Milky Way.