Rating: 
Summary: What's all the fuss about?
Review: "Galileo's Daughter" has been a best-seller now for at least 6 months. I have no idea why.This book is well written. The research is workmanlike. The illustrations are good. The only fault I can find with it, is: why was it written in the first place? Sister Maria Celeste was a loving, supportive daughter to Galileo. Wow! That's a revelation! I guess no other great minds in history had loving supportive families. It's not even that Sister Maria Celeste was a forgotten figure until Dava Sobel dug her up. Judging from the source material cited at the end, there are at least 4 other books (mostly Italian language) that deal primarily with Sister Maria Celeste. So, again I ask: why was this book written? Admittedly, it's always good to get a refresher course in the importance of a figure such as Galileo. His breakthroughs, insights & originality of mind were truly awe-inspiring. The history of the Catholic Church is also always good to remind us of the necessity of the Protestant revolution. There just doesn't seem to be a current need for another book on the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is BORING!
Review: Don't be fooled by all these positive reviews! If sunspots and Galileo's laundry don't interest you, save your money. The title is a total misrepresentation of the novel. It is a straight biography of Galileo and very little more. I read the whole book to get to the so-called surprise ending and wish I had my time back... what a waste.
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Summary: The inquisition in all it's glory
Review: I can't help but think of the Mel Brooke's parody of the Spanish Inquisition ("Hey Torquemada, what do you say? I said I just got back from the auto de fe...) while reading of Galileo's troubles with defending the Copernican system in 17th century Italy. This book provides a vivid portrait of Galileo's personal life coupled with his brilliant scientific theories and experiments. If you like historical ficiton, you'll love this book for its portrait and background of Florence, Venice, The Medici's, Pope Urban, and the rest of cast of characters in Galileo's life. Though the book title makes you think it's about his daughter, that's not the case -- it's about Galileo as seen through the letters preserved from his daughter. Except for her devotion and sweetness, we learn much more about him than her in this book which is just as well since his life was more interesting. Among other high level science and astromony lessons you'll learn, you'll be thankful that we don't have to deal with the Bubonic plague or many other common ailments -- Galileo (like Beethoven) suffered his whole life with many serious ailments. Who knows what else he might have discovered if he hadn't been bedridden for much of the time. A quick moving and engaging historical account of Galileo and his accomplishments.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling reading
Review: Galelio's Daughter is a beautiful example of how a biography of a famous person can be made interesting without obvious exaggerations and dramatisations. A very realistic protrial of a great man; very lucidly told. Sobel takes the trouble of explaining some of Galelio's treasties in a manner that makes it easy for any lay person to follow. An excellent book.
Rating: 
Summary: Penguin Targets Female Buyers (Was it TitleVII?)
Review: There is an interesting untold story here ...of fornication and illegitimacy without "Inquisition" and corrupt and gruelling convent life during the same period Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony were founded. While a good biography of Gallileo this is no story of the father and daughter relationship nor a story of the daughter's life or calling.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Biography with a Mystery-Like Ending
Review: In the first one-third of the volume the author writes about Galileo's invention of a telescope, first observation of the moon's mountains and valleys, discovery of four satellites of the planet Jupiter, observation of a "nova" to impugn the Aristotelian immutability of the heavens, guess about the nature of sunspots, endeavor to support the sun-centered theory of Copernicus, etc., etc. Thus I thought that the title of the book was quite inappropriate. Even reading later chapters, where many letters addressed to Galileo by his daughter with the name of Suor Maria Celeste are cited, I thought that this was a biography of Galileo himself, which well depicted not only his scientific but also his personal life together with family and social backgrounds. Near the end of the volume, however, there was an episode like a mystery. I felt like thunderstruck, and smiled and said to myself, "Yes, the title is quite appropriate!" I could not help but imagine what wonderful work would Suor Maria Celeste have done if she had lived in the modern age not as a nun but as a scientist. The book also invoked in my mind great desires to read Galileo's books, "Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems" and "Two New Sciences," and to observe planets with a telescope. These facts would prove the excellence of this book.
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Summary: Great Contrasts, Mutual Love and Respect
Review: Wow, what a great little book this is. I really enjoyed the contrast drawn between the lives of Galileo and his daughter as well as the great warmth and respect these two human beings held for each other. This book helped transformed my impression of Galileo from a semi-defient inventor of Physics and modern Astronomy to a passionate warm hearted father and humanitarian during difficult times. Although this book may not be the first choice of the average professor of history, as Mr. Bermuda alludes, but to the more casual consumer of history, this is an excellent story about the ordinary and extra-ordinary days of one of the greatest icons of modern science.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful! Kept me totally enthralled...
Review: I have been enthralled by this book over the past few days, despite the fact that it is not a "historical novel", as the person from Bermuda, who does not have the courage to identify his/herself, says this book should have been. I have a degree in European History from UCBerkeley, and have been living in Florence, Italy for 17 years now. I perhaps for these reasons find absolutely fascinating "Galileo's laundrey lists". What can be more interesting than to get into the everyday life of a genious such as Galileo (who had his faults, as do most of us humans...) Without this book, there are so many things about Galileo, about Italy in that period, about the university system, about the feudal/city-state system, about the Roman Catholic Church etc etc etc that I would never have known or imagined, despite the fact that I consider myself quite well versed in these matters. Even my husband, who is a university professor of medicine in Ferrara is interested in the facts about those times which, since I haven't passed over my copy of the book to him yet, I quote to him over coffee or during car trips here and there in Tuscany and the neighboring regions. I agree that it is unfortunate that Galileo's letters did not survive the Roman Catholic Church, but hey, that's life. Sobel did a wonderful job with the information obtainable. A message to anyone who criticizes a work of such intellectual measure: 1) identify yourself and 2) why don't you write something? It would be a real pleasure to read your opera, if you can surpass this one. Cheers! Mary Kristel Lokken Florence, Italy
Rating:
Summary: Entrancing & fabulous -- with a stunning ending!
Review: Of course I'm not going to give the ending away. However erudite I might smugly think I am about the merits of well-written non-fiction, I was simply blown away by the emotional firepower of the conclusion of this book. I have been to Florence many times, and have visited the Church of Santa Croce during each visit, where Galileo's tomb resides today on the same floor as the legendary Michelangelo and Machiavelli. If I had read something like Sobel's book 10 years ago, it would have sparked a burst of emotions heretofore missing in those visits, similar to splashing a million colors onto a blank canvas, or in the case of Galileo's tomb, injecting life onto a slab of colorless marble. The amazing beauty of this work is that it reads like a novel, or more to the point, it paints pictures reminiscent of the language of cinema. It is historical, factual and meticulous. Yet it is not TOO detailed. Unlike typical historical treatments of people whose accomplishments are regarded so magnificent that they are automatically given an entrance ticket into the pantheon of immortality, Sobel's story of Galileo and his relationship with his daughter is engrossing, spellbinding and bereft of the technical minutiae that bogs down many works of non-fiction. Too often, authors attempting to bring life to the thoughts and actions of great figures, go so overboard with tiny details that they undercut their own efforts. They disrupt the narrative momentum so critical to good old fashioned story-telling. There's nothing worse than to read half way down a page and then realize that you missed everything crammed so badly into two paragraphs that you're forced to read them again. "Galileo's Daughter" is a work of non-fiction and an easy read, despite its potentially forbidding subject. While much verbiage is expended about the master's fight to prove Copernicus' theory of a sun-centered galaxy, in the face of recriminations and potential persecutions from the Catholic Church, the author's method of tackling this issue is unlike anything you will ever find in a boring textbook. The result is pure entertainment, like watching a drama about a clash of ideas and egos, the stuff movies are made of. After a while, you are lulled into thinking that the title of Sobel's book is merely a subtext to what is really Galileo's story. His daughter's letters simply humanize the "legend" of Galileo, transforming him into a domestic, a real person, a parent with the normal concerns for his children. For all of his cranial powers, Galileo is not so self-absorbed that he abrogates his responsibilities as a father. He comes off as a concerned parent who endeavors to provide the best for his children. But then the twist! You think you know where this story is going because after all, this is a work of non-fiction! But you're wrong! By the end of "Galileo's Daughter," author Sobel finds an ingenious way to circle back to what is inferred by the title of his book, despite the preponderance of words expended on Galileo himself. The result is a stunner. If you buy this book, and I recommend you do, DON'T cheat and go to its last few pages. If you do, you'll deprive yourself of the emotional impact of a revelation that may be common knowledge to some, but in reality is obscure to the greater body of people who think they know history. "Galileo's Daughter" is a marvelous achievement. If all non-fiction works were written this way, I'd stop going to the movies.
Rating:
Summary: A Superb Book - Extremely well written
Review: Without a doubt this is one of the finest books I have ever read. The author tells a story so well that you feel you can touch the characters. This is a truly a story of love, faith, science and let me add, religion. You will come to feel that you know personally Galileo and his daughter and you will gain a sense of what it was like for Galileo to go up against the chruch and "hypothesize" that the Earth was not the center of the universe.
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