Rating: 
Summary: Corresponding Daughter
Review: This was a great story. Sobel focused on the human side of one of the great scientific minds of the last millenium. We tend to forget that the ideas advanced by Galileo were not opposed so much for the scientific content, but more so for the political and religious upset they spawned. Italy in the early 1600's was a closed religious society enforced by the power of the Inquisition. Sobel's description puts me in mind of the the Taliban in modern Afganistan, or communist China at the peak of the Revolution. Galileo's daughter was a cloistered nun in that society, and as such we might have expected her to support the orthodoxy of the Church. Despite the fact that her father was labelled as heretical by some in the church, his daughter's correspondence shows that she remained faithful to and supportive of her father. Sobel lets us see how the intrigue and political issues of Galileo's work and life affected their relationship, and how their relationship affected his science.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: I love books that mix science, history, and-- in some ways- some of the back alleys of mankinds'long historical saga. This is a great story, spun from something that would seem as innocuous as a daughter's letters. This book, like two others I read this last year, The Parrots Lament and Nabokov's Blues, take something as seemingly insignificant as the acts of individuals (in one book's case not even humans but animals) and expand them to make grander stories about things that are far more important. So does Sobel move from the letters of a daughter to the retelling of a historic tale that still has vivid ramifications today. There has been a lot to read in science writing this last year and its great to see Sobel's new book, after Longitude, also zoom to the top. I can't remember a year as good as 1999 for reading science and history and I'm not surprised that Sobel has another hit.
Rating:
Summary: One of My Favorite Books of the Year
Review: I'm an avid popular science reader and I enjoyed Sobel's Galileo's Daughter and Johnson and Coates' Nabokov's Blues as much as any other book I read this year. Both have in common really new spins on what might be considered well-known subjects. Sobel has taken a backwater of information from Galileo's wider biography and used it to respin Galileo's story into a fascinating narrative. You not only get the new, but the new reframes and refreshes the old. A great job. I see Sobel is hosting some tours to Galileo country in Europe-- wish I could go along and see the landscapes that surround the story. This was a great year for popular science narratives.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Approach
Review: I enjoyed very much this work by Ms. Sobel and I was very moved by the detail and great respect that she brought to this subject.
Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: This book is very well written. The reason I give it four stars instead of five is that I prefer to read books that are less historical. Two great books that focus on science that I have recently read are THE ELEGANT UNIVERSE and THE BIBLE ACCORDING TO EINSTEIN
Rating:
Summary: Theme
Review: This book is really very good and is written in simple english. Book is very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Love, Science, Faith and a Parable
Review: This is a super book which brings to life the daily routines of the 17th century -- including those life of a cloistered nun -- while telling a great love story, recounting the development in Europe and Italy of modern physics, and describing the political and academic intrigues and jealousies that led to the banning in Italy of the Copernican theory of the universe. Yet, at the same time as Galileo endured persecution by the inquisition and was forced to recant his ideas, buoyed by the love of his friends and, especially, his remarkable daughter, Marie Celeste, he retained both his religious faith and his confidence in science, and continued to work, producing some of his finest work even while under house arrest. Galileo's story continues to have significance in our present era, when science, and particularly biology, is under attack by political and religious fundamentalists. Sobel's book shows the pettiness and ultimate impotence of such attacks in the face of courageous, ethical minds such as Galileo's and the force and beauty of nature. Best of all, she brings this point home without pedantry or proselytizing, but rather by telling the story simply, as it occurred: and indeed, "Eppur, si muove."
Rating:
Summary: Revealing history, at global and personal levels
Review: For us laymen - neither historians nor scientists - Dava Sobel has delivered a fascinating and readable exploration of a time in history that has had an immeasurable effect on our own, "modern" life, both at the societal and individual levels. She offers a thorough and apparently well-documented re-analysis of events that shaped the futures of the sciences and the Catholic faith. She tackles these large issues with clarity and an ability to communicate technical, or hairsplitting, concepts to the average reader. She is able to take us through the relationships, personal strengths and follies, and international events that led up to Galileo's famous trial, and does it in such a way that we are not bored in the least. At the same time, she gives a unique look at the daily lives of people who walked, talked, breathed and loved, just as we do today. Through her research and descriptions, we see that we are not so different from the people who lived so long ago - a good lesson for these very-millennial, oh-so-modern times. In fact, the joy of this book is not the discovery that Galileo had a daughter, and that they wrote letters to each other that we can peek at. The joy is in realizing that we are part of that same tapestry of life; that we are not so unique - and alone - after all. In terms of expectations for this book, other reviewers are correct: the first portion of the text barely touches upon Suor Marie Celeste at all. However, this delay works. By the time we get to her story, and the story of Galileo's trial, we have enough background information to make them meaningful, and not just a list of dates and characters. This book was well-written; the style is comfortable and the narrative flows. It's as if a favorite storyteller has moved from fact to fiction and, with no embellishment of the truth, makes the past come alive. I recommend you read this, if only to get a sense of what has made us who we are today.
Rating:
Summary: Galileo as a human and father
Review: This book is, as a previous reviewer pointed out, less about Suor Maria Celeste (nee Virginia Galilei) than about Galileo himself, but the book itself is very absorbing and clearly well-researched. I found it very interesting to contrast Galileo's life with his daughter's: the former engaged in a far-reaching study of the heavens and laws of science, while the latter was cloistered for her entire adult life within the walls of a convent. However, their affection for and devotion to one another illustrates how familial love can bind two people together despite vastly divergent experiences.
Rating:
Summary: Celiaelena
Review: An exceptional book - the surprising ending was an unexpected disarming uplift. This is a book that educates, enlightens, and entertains (in the sense of time well spent). Some of the education subjects were: physics, hydraulics, optics, astronomy, motion, acceleration, medicine and pharmacy, as it were, etc not to mention the Rules of Saint Claire. Does our education allow for character formation of the type where multi-disciplines are allowed to grow so evident in this work? Enlightment as it relates to today - is there any daughter writing and looking after a widower father like Sr. Celeste today? Does our society allow for this relationship? I was glad there was no e-mail then.
|
