The links below will take you to the amazon.com pages for each of the listed books.

Popular Cosmology Books

"The Big Bang" by Simon Singh. History of cosmology from the ancient Greeks through the cosmic microwave background.
"The Fabric of the Cosmos" by Brian Greene. A non-technical look at all the hard problems in physics and cosmology, by a very good writer. Greene also wrote "The Elegant Universe" which is all about string theory,
"Echo of the Big Bang", by Michael Lemonick. A non-technical history of the WMAP mission.
"The Extravagant Universe" by Bob Kirshner. A "useful and polite" and always entertaining look at the supernova evidence for the cosmological constant and the accelerating expansion of the Universe.
"The Origin and Evolution of the Universe" edited by Zuckerman and Malkan. A UCLA Center for the Study of the Evolution and Origin of Life (CSEOL) Symposium. 1996, Jones and Bartlett Publishers. I wrote the leadoff article in this collection.
"The Very First Light", by John Mather and John Boslough, 1996. BasicBooks. The true history of the COBE project written by the Project Scientist.
"Afterglow of Creation" by Marcus Chown. Good science journalism.
"The Five Ages of the Universe : Inside the Physics of Eternity" by Fred Adams & Greg Laughlin. -- The very distant future of our Universe.
"Our Evolving Universe" by Malcolm Longair. -- A book with beautiful pictures and a good non-technical introduction to cosmology.
"Einstein's Greatest Blunder? : The Cosmological Constant and Other Fudge Factors in the Physics of the Universe" by Donald Goldsmith. I haven't read "The Runaway Universe : The Race to Discover the Future of the Cosmos" by the same author, but it covers the accelerating expansion seen in the recent supernova data.
"Quintessence : The Mystery of the Missing Mass in the Universe" by Lawrence Krauss. An update of "The Fifth Essence". Dark Matter.
"The Origin of the Universe" by John D. Barrow. Covers a wide range of topics: inflation, including the chaotic and perpetual versions, wormholes and space-time foam, the anthropic principle, with nice illustrations.
"The Origins of our Universe" by Malcolm Longair. A small book based on the Christmas lectures at the Royal Society. Out of print.
"Before the Beginning : Our Universe and Others" by Martin Rees. There are no equations, but also no graphs, figures or illustrations of any kind.
"Ripples in the Cosmos" by Michael Rowan-Robinson. Has the same erroneous T vs t graph as "Shadows of Creation". Out of print.
"The Shadows of Creation", by Michael Riordan and David Schramm. Dark matter. Has the same erroneous T vs t graph as "Ripples in the Cosmos". Out of print.
"Coming of Age in the Milky Way" by Timothy Ferris. A more extensive coverage of the material in the "Creation of the Universe" show on PBS.
"The Alchemy of the Heavens: Searching for Meaning in the Milky Way", by Ken Croswell. A good book about our Galaxy.
"The First Three Minutes" by Steven Weinberg. Old but good treatment of light element synthesis. Out of print.
"The Big Bang" by Joseph Silk. Many typos, unfortunately.
"A Short History of the Universe" by Joseph Silk. Many typos, unfortunately.

College Introductory Astronomy Textbooks

"Astronomy: The Evolving Universe", Michael Zeilik.
"Astronomy: the Cosmic Perspective", Zeilik & Gaustad
"Journey Through the Universe", Jay Pasachoff
"Astronomy: From the Earth to the Universe", Jay Pasachoff
"Abell's Exploration of the Universe", David Morrison, Sidney Woolf & Andrew Fraknoi
"Realm of the Universe", George O. Abell, Sidney Woolf & David Morrison

College Astrophysics Textbooks

"Introductory Astronomy and Astrophysics", Zeilik, Gregory & Smith
"An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics", Bradley Carroll & Dale Ostlie

College Cosmology Textbooks

"Cosmology", 4th edition, Michael Rowan-Robinson. A recently updated classic.
"Introduction to Cosmology", Barbara Ryden. A new upper division textbook.
"Foundations of Modern Cosmology", Hawley and Holcomb. For upper division non-science majors.

Graduate Cosmology Textbooks

"Gravitation and Cosmology" by Steven Weinberg.
"Cosmological Physics", John Peacock. All of physics relevant to cosmology, which is all of physics.
"Principles of Physical Cosmology" by P. J. E. Peebles.
"The Early Universe" by Kolb and Turner.
"Gravitation" by Misner, Thorne and Wheeler. Also known is the "Bible" or the "telephone book", this is primarily a very good textbook on general relativity. 1215 pages, 2.5 kg in paperback!

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