Up

A Journey Through Extraordinary Skies

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'A book rich with light, love, and the best kind of astonishment.' Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk'

'Entertaining and unusual.' Tristan Gooley, author of The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs

The sky is a world of endless wonder. From the intricate dance of clouds and the vibrant hues of the aurora borealis to the marvel of effortless soaring birds and the silent majesty of the stars, it is a living storybook.

In Up, inventor and engineer Dr Lucy Rogers explores the beauty, science, and surprises of the world above.

Join her on a marvellous adventure through a kite market in India, creep through the Borneo jungle to witness millions of bats pour out of a cave at dusk, venture to Tornado Alley to chase the raw power of storms, and journey to Mexico to stand in awe of a total solar eclipse.

Up is for anyone who has ever paused to marvel at a shooting star, wondered about the ingenuity of human flight, or dreamed of touching a rainbow. Bringing rich insights, personal stories, and a very real sense of awe for the natural world, Dr Rogers explores the science behind these phenomena and reveals all there is to discover if you look Up.

'Genuinely amazing: she changes your perspective on life.' Tim Minshall, author of Your Life is Manufactured

'My only complaint about the writing of Lucy Rogers is that there isn't enough of it' Tim Radford, Guardian

Exhilarating.
Saga Magazine

Above us unfolds a theatre of light and life — wings beating, storms gathering, the aurora dancing in the dark. In Up, Lucy Rogers invites us to look skyward, to rediscover the restless marvels overhead. Through kites and eclipses, bats and tempests, she journeys through the teeming heavens with a scientist’s eye and a poet’s heart — a lyrical meditation on awe, curiosity, and the fragile beauty above. A book to awaken wonder and lift the soul skyward."
Roger Highfield, an author, journalist, broadcaster and Science Director at the Science Museum

Lucy Rogers’s book ‘Up’ does something genuinely amazing: she changes your perspective on life by encouraging you to tilt your head backwards and look – really look – at what is going on above us. By doing so, we get to appreciate the exquisite beauty and complexity of things in the air around us, the sky above, and space beyond. In a wonderfully engaging style, she takes on explorations around and far beyond the earth – via single butterflies to murmurations of starlings, from rainbows to aurora, from space stations to the stars that guided past and will guide future journeys. I learned so much from this book.
Tim Minshall, Dr John C Taylor Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge, and author of Your Life is Manufactured

Up is a proper feast for mind and heart. Taking us on a tour of the things that exist above us—from the very small and local to the impossibly vast and remote—it shows us their marvellous complexities, beauties and sublimities and how their meanings get tangled with our own. Lucy Rogers is not only an exceptional science writer but a marvellous communicator of the wonder that drives curiosity about the world: Up is a book rich with light, love, and the best kind of astonishment.
Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk

About Dr Lucy Rogers

Dr Lucy Rogers MBE is an award-winning engineer, inventor, author and science communicator who enjoys finding practical solutions to unusual problems.
Her career has included designing animatronic dinosaurs, developing technologies to tackle space debris and serving as a judge on the BBC's ‘Robot Wars’. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Honorary President of the Institution of Engineering Designers, and was awarded an MBE in 2024 for services to engineering.
Her first book, It's ONLY Rocket Science, makes aerospace engineering accessible to non-specialists. Her most recent book, UP takes readers on a journey through our extraordinary skies.
In 2026, Lucy was appointed Sharman Outreach Fellow at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge. She is also an experienced international speaker and host of the SpaceBase podcast.
Lucy is particularly interested in engineering in extreme environments, from Antarctica to space and the deep ocean, and finding unexpected applications for existing technologies.
She is now based in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she is exploring practical engineering projects, including humanitarian and conservation work.

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