Galileo's Daughter : A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

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Summary: Wonderful!
Review: This is a wonderful book which provides terrific human detail to the fascinating story of Galileo, using letters from his daughter during her years as a cloistered nun. The detail provided in her letters paints a fascinating picture of life during the mid-1600's. In addition, the author provides details from transcripts of Galileo's trial. I had long read this and that as to what transpired regarding Galileo's writings and the Catholic church. It was nice to get a clear and coherent presentation using Inquisition documents from his trial. A great read.

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Summary: Not as good as the Longitude
Review: Sobel's Longitude was truly a great book. Galileo's daughter is OK but doesn't quite measure up. It is (as the cover says) a book about faith, love, and science. The letters from Galileo's daughter are interesting to a point but become so repetitive that I ended up skipping them. The biography of Galileo is the meat of the book. Perhaps unlike others it reveals some of his weaknesses as well as his successes. This isn't a gripping book, but it is worth finishing.

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Summary: Science, heresy, and the banalities of life in a convent
Review: This book is a mix of history about Galileo, his science, and his trial, and the letters his daughter wrote to him from the convent. A previous reviewer complained that the letters are boring and should be skipped over. Yes, the letters are not groundbreaking in the way that Galileo's scientific letters were, but that is why they are fascinating: they provide clues as to what ordinary life in the average convent of the time was like. This book demonstrates the complexity of Galileo's relationship with the church of that time--on the one hand, he could be forced by his friend Pope Urban to abjure his book supporting the Copernican view of the universe, yet on the other he was intimately involved in supporting the upkeep of the convent where his daughters lived. It's as much a book about the society of 17th century Tuscany and Rome as it is about Galileo's correspondence with his daughter.

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Summary: This was the best present this year
Review: I got this book (among a few others) for the holidays and I was mesmerized by its beauty and by the professionalism with which it is written. Sobel excels in richness of description and detail, and she gives a touch of humanity to a subject that has been explored far too many times. Anyone in search of a nice read should get this book. It is good for those who enjoy the easy flow of fiction--although this one is real-- as well as those with academic taste in search of a new treat for their minds. ENJOY IT!

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Summary: Fascenating and inspirational
Review: I adored this book! It has everything I look for- amazing characters, beautiful writing, and marvelous historical discriptions. The added bonus was learning about the birth of moder-day science. This book was an inspiration to me, the awe-inspiring figures of Galileo and his daughter, their touching relationship and the scope of historial influences on their life. I also found the author, Dava Sobel, whom I heard speak last month at the Natural History Museum in NYC, equally inspirational. How wonderful it is to hear someone speak so elequently about their passion!

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Summary: The Heretic and the Nun
Review: Old,blind and under house arrest for suspicion of heresy, in 1641, Galileo Galilei wrote to his most beloved student: "I spend my fruitless days which are so long because of my continuous inactivity and yet so brief compared with all the months and years which have passed; I am left with no other comfort than the memory of the sweetness of former friendships." His grief, in part, was the loss of his 33 year-old illegitimate daughter Virginia, who when cloistered took the name Suor Maria Celeste. After her death, he wrote to a friend that he felt "immense sadness and melancholy," had lost his appetite and continually heard his daughter calling to him. This was the daughter who, from her own prison within a convent since her 13th birthday, had lovingly bleached her father's collars, copied over his correspondence, made his favourite confections from the lemons and chartreuse citrons he sent her from his garden. Galileo, in turn, delivered to his daughter special spinach dishes that he cooked himself and gave her a warm quilt to replace the one she had given to her younger sister. These minutiae of quotidian life are the leitmotif of Dava Sobel's elegant and exquisitely written book. Among the rare manuscripts in the Central Library of Florence, is a tattered folder of 124 letters. Around these letters that Suor Maria Celeste wrote to her father between May 1623 and April 1634 when she died of dysentery, Sobel has constructed this book. None of Galileo's letters to his daughter have survived, but using letters he wrote and received from students, friends, other scientists and churchmen, excerpts from monastic decrees and from court transcripts of his trial and quoting many of his daughter's letters in full, Sobel weaves a sparkling tale. Aristotle and Ptolemy had placed the earth motionless at the center of the cosmos, explaining the movement of the sun and stars across the sky as a daily rotation of the heavens about a celestial axis. The seasons were explained by a yearly revolution of the sun about the earth. Galileo's arguments in favor of a sun-centered cosmos, in violation of the Bible and Christian doctrine, led to the clash between modern science and the church. It was only in 1835 that Galileo's "Dialogues" was dropped from the Vatican's Index of Prohibited Books and it wasn't until 1982 that Pope John Paul II's Galileo Commission reinvestigating the Galileo affair, and finally endorsed the physicist's philosophy in 1992. Four years ago I had rued the fact that Dava Sobel's Longitude ended too soon. In this immensely satisfying book she gives Galileo voice and brings him to life.

Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: What a nice book. I highly recommended. It just goes to show what a great relationship a father and daughter can have. This book tells us about the human side of Galileo, it goes beyond what we usually read in science books. A very good buy.

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Summary: Premise Did Not Work
Review: The premise of this book did not work for me. I found Galileo's daughter's letters boring. I don't see any evidence here why she was particularly interesting or intelligent. I am not surprised that these letter's have been mostly ignored in the past. They are banal and trite for the most part and rather too apologetic. But despite the title, the majority of the book is about Galileo and absorbing. Skip the letters and enjoy. I will no doubt search out a longer bio of Galileo due to this book. (My review should be 3 1/2 stars. But I had to make a choice and 4 stars is just too much. I'm not one to get sucked into this 5 star review for any good book. My 5 star reviews will be for about 1 out of every 100 books I read, if that.)

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Summary: Lovely, but not quite heavenly...
Review: Rather than rehash the outline, which has been accomplshed by many editorial and customer reviews, I want to include a bit of a cautionary note. I just finished the book, and am very glad I read it. The themes of religion vs. science, the individual vs. the collective, portrayed in juxtapostion with the filial relationship of Galileo and his daughter, are skillfully rendered. Perhaps it took me a while to become involved in the period and with the people, but I found the first third of the book to be a bit plodding. Granted, I am not a fan of biography and tend toward literary fiction, but the buzz on this book was such that I felt compelled to read it. Others similarly situated may do well to wait for the paperback edition, or at least take the time to really look at the book in the library. For readers with a greater scientific bent than I, this would be a genuine pleasure.

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Summary: A FANTASTIC BOOK
Review: I found this book to be very special and my Catholic background added to me identity with the characters. . .I would suggest that anyone read this book. . . And If you want to read another book that goes straight to your heart, read Stolen Moments by Barbara Jeanne Fisher. . .It is a beautiful story of unrequited love. . .for certain the love story of the nineties. I intended to give the book a quick read, but I got so caught up in the story that I couldn't put the book down. From the very beginning, I was fully caught up in the heart-wrenching account of Julie Hunter's battle with lupus and her growing love for Don Lipton. This love, in the face of Julie's impending death, makes for a story that covers the range of human emotions. The touches of humor are great, too, they add some nice contrast and lighten things a bit when emotions are running high. I've never read a book more deserving of being published. It has rare depth. Julie's story will remind your readers that life and love are precious and not to be taken for granted. It has had an impact on me, and for that I'm grateful. Stolen Moments is written with so much sensitivity that it made me want to cry. It is a spellbinder. What terrific writing. Barbara does have an exceptional gift! This book was edited by Lupus specialist Dr. Matt Morrow too, and has the latest information on that disease. ..A perfect gift for someone who started college late in life, fell in love too late in life, is living with any illness, or trying to understand a loved one who is. . .A gift to be cherished forever