Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting
Review: While I thoroughly enjoyed the book, I agree with some of the previous reviewers that the title did mislead the reader (albeit only slightly) about book's content. Afterall, the book is basically about Galileo himself through historical materials, most of which were his daughter's correspondence to him. However, as the title does suggest, a recurring theme of the book is the inspiration and comfort Maria Celeste offered her father. We all have learned about the man's innovations though science lessons, but here Sobel also introduces us to Galileo the man, father, and pious Catholic. The first 50 pages were slow with the introduction of so many (perhaps too many) historical figures. However, after that point, the book becomes so engaging (and focused on a manageable number of figures) that the reader becomes absorbed into Galileo's life and races through the pages. It is a motivational and emotional tale that is well-worth the read. In addition, Sobel offers us a unique glimpse into the life of a Poor Clare nun of the period. Maria Celeste appears to be the quintessential Poor Clare...pious, hard-working, and living a destitute existence. Yet she is also so much more here. We begin to know her as Galileo may have.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: In consultation with my book group, we agreed that it was difficult to maintain an interest in the storyline because Suor Maria Celeste was not a compelling character. We were excited about Galileo's creativity, determination, and political savvy. We agree with the reviewer who noted that the title was misleading. It would have been more interesting to simply focus on Galileo and his accomplishments.
Rating: 
Summary: A big disappointment
Review: I really enjoyed Dava Sobel's "Longitude," and had great hopes for this book, but I just couldn't get into it. Unlike "Longitude," this time Sobel has a very well-known tale to tell. She chooses to tell it from the perspective of Galileo's daughter, whom he sent to a convent at the age of twelve. She spent the rest of her life sitting right there in the same convent, which you must admit makes for a pretty dull life as far as moving around, getting married, and having any sort of active life at all. And what is our reason for wanting to know anything at all about her? Well, she was Galileo's daughter, and we want to know about Galileo. So why not just tell the story of Galileo? I found this lack of focus fatal to the book -- and it wasn't there in "Longitude." I hope her next book comes up to the standard of that book!
Rating:
Summary: A Tale of Science, Faith and of course, Love
Review: Gailieo's Daughter is an original piece of historical fiction that is not only a great story but an education about the early experiments of philosophers as they evolve into scientists. For a reader with no interest in physics, that is a great accomplishment. There does seem to be more to Maria Celeste than what was said in this novel and I find this to be its one major downfall. However, that does not in any way make it a poorly written story, an uninteresting story or a bad story. One great achievement of this book is showing the human side of a scientific genius, Galileo Galilei. Most biographies concentrate either entirely on the career of the subject or the personal life but not both. It seems that Galileo's daughter is what kept him a loving person and the only way we could see that today is through her letters. Sure they talk about laundry, money matters, illnesses and other things that people don't usually associate with someone of Galileo's fame and intelligence but for myself it showed what a truly "Christian" human being he was, yet the Catholic Church thought otherwise. In every science and history book I had only learned a one-dimentional, watered-down version of what happened at his trial and now I realize that the books were leading me to believe something that wasn't true. Galileo wasn't challenging the Church, the Church was challenging science. Being a Catholic, I also began to think deeply about science and religion and their differences. If you are not a Christian or you don't believe in God you can skip this paragraph before I delve into this. I have had two different thoughts on combining science and religion. My first thought is that perhaps science and religion don't have to be two completely separate arenas. Could it be that the discovery of scientific phenomenom is God's plan? Why couldn't God have the power to stop the earth from rotating? Wouldn't that be proof that his power extends beyond human reason and knowledge? Which brings me to my second point. Aren't we always learning about God? Wouldn't God want us to learn about him, including the science behind His creation? Why do we limit our knowledge to the Bible? As our knowlege about our world grows, shouldn't our knowledge about God grow as well? While that sounds simplistic, maybe in learning about science we are learning another side of God we never knew existed and we are learning more about the Bible and it's subjects by the new knowledge of God's link to science. Perhaps one small part of the mystery of God is how he is connected to the scientific world, just as we are connected to Life. Anyway, more about the book. It is sometimes a slow read, a minor setback, but once you get through the slow parts it is still worth continuing. The great lengths Galileo and Maria Celeste went through to communicate with each other is commemorable and his supporters did their best to keep up his spirits. It seems that the prayers of Maria Celeste were answered; Galileo did live to accomplish what he set out to do and his observations and inventions have exceled above and beyond the expectations he had for them when he died. This book is worth reading, in my opinion. Perhaps it wasn't what many people were expecting, but for me it was worth the effort. I learned something and it was a story worth being told.
Rating:
Summary: good overview biography
Review: While I was expecting this book to be more of a historical fiction, and centered more around the daughter, I still enjoyed it. You're given a very undetailed biography of Galileo's later years (mainly). They don't really go too much into his research, discoveries, inventions. But what I've come away with as the most beneficial part of the book is how you get an inside view into the culture of that era. Since the actual letters from Suor Maria Celeste to Galileo are reproduced, you get to see what sort of things they had to deal with on a day to day basis. You get to see the politics of church and state that Galileo had to play most of his life.
Rating: 
Summary: I devoured this book, laundry lists and all
Review: This is a beautiful book about two beautiful people - Galileo and his daughter Maria Celeste. It is also the story of one of the landmark events in the development of humankind from savagery to something resembling civilization. Alas, there are elements of both in this tale. A good case could be made that Galileo was the most important person who ever lived, because he was one of the first to stop speculating and starting testing. He turned the telescope into a useful instrument, turned it on the stars and discovered the moons of Jupiter, and spots on the sun. From this he correctly reasoned that Copernicus was right - the Earth is not the center of the universe. He refuted Aristotle's speculations about motion (they hardly qualified as theories) and laid the foundation for the new science of physics. As the Founding Father of the Scientific Method he pointed the way for an explosion in human knowledge, health, and comfort. Nearly every moment of our lives is in some way touched by his life and work, though we hardly know it or stop to consider it or be grateful. The book is full of interesting factoids. For instance . . . Galileo was the son of a musician. His father helped give birth to opera and set a good example for his son by conducting experiments to challenge musical theories handed down from Pythagoras. Galileo did not finish his own university education but nevertheless became a university instructor of the first rank. He was also an inventor, a businessman, and an excellent writer. But the book is only partly an exposition of the life and works of a great man. It is also a non-fiction novel that takes us into the passionate relationship between Galileo and his daughter, Maria Celeste. Much of the story is told in the form of letters she wrote to him from the confines of her convent, where she lived from her early teens until her death. Her letters are like a time machine - they take us back to a world and mode of thought that are very alien to our own, but the letters still resonate with us because of the timeless human concerns they also express. Needless to say, a major portion of the book is given over to Galileo's run-in with the Catholic Church. The author seems sympathetic to the church, Galileo himself was very devout, and many Catholic figures were among his staunchest supporters, but I still found it impossible to quell an angry response at the self-deception, arrogance, hypocrisy, and double-dealing of the church in this affair. First the church leaders hail Galileo and his work. Then they instruct him that he can only speak of his discoveries as though they are hypotheses, and not facts. He does as they instruct, inserting double-talk to blunt the force of his well-reasoned arguments. He then submits his work to the Inquisitors and they grant him permission to publish. Galileo does so, but then suddenly the Inquisitors are shocked, simply shocked that Galileo has in fact written what they knew he would write, what they told him he could write, and published what they told him he could publish. Of course, the church leaders can spout all sorts of mumbo-jumbo to rationalize their own behavior, but it doesn't wash. Leaving aside that Galileo should have had the right to publish whatever he pleased, there is simply no excuse for what the church did to him, given their own complicity in the affair. Common sense cannot help but view the kind of hair-splitting religious thinking the church leaders employed in this case as being tantamount to a rape of the intellect. But that's an old story that sadly, continues even today, both in religion and politics. Galileo's life was ruined, but he persevered and even managed to do the best work of his life under dire circumstances. Sadly, his beloved daughter died while he was confined. One is left feeling sad that this man's good deeds for humanity did not receive the reward they so richly deserved, but were instead punished by men of uncommon indecency, who had the nerve to proclaim themselves the guardians of virtue. It is altogether fitting that Pope Urban's self-erected statue was torn down within hours of his death, if for the wrong reasons. How does the story end? It ends in the grave, but to find out what I mean you will have to read the book. It is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The title of this book misrepresents it.
Review: One naturally expects that "Galileo's Daughter" is a book about Galileo's daughter, much the way "Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers : A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer" is a book about Lord Byron's daughter. But no. This is not the story of Galileo's daughter, nor is it the story of a father-daughter relationship. Instead, it's an abridged biography of Galileo, padded with letters from his illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. All of the letters from Galileo to his daughter have been lost or destroyed. So the conversation is one sided. And her letters contribute nothing to an understanding of Galileo. They are endlessly repetitive, consisting of pleas for money and hum drum details of daily life. Worse, the letters interrupt the story at awkard moments, with details about table cloths or Galileo's laundry halting the story of Galileo's scientific achievments. Galileo's daughter's letters are nothing new. Stillman Drake (Galileo at Work) mentions them. And there are several other books that deal with Sister Maria Celeste. Instead of reading this book, read any book about Galileo by Stillman Drake.
Rating:
Summary: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Galileo's Daughter
Review: While there are many things to recommend this book, I found it less interesting to read than I had hoped, and hence, have given it only three stars. My dissatisfaction derives from the fact that this book relies for its substance on the surviving letters of Suor Maria Celeste, Galileo's cloistered daughter. This means that Sobel's book can't concentrate either on the fascinating life of Galileo or the life of the cloistered nun in Italy in the seventeenth century, but rather attempts to recreate the relationship of a father and his daughter through her fawning letters. In fairness, Suor Maria Celeste does seem like a remarkable woman. Her writing style, while cloying, is impressive. Her life was one of incredible privation, and she was amazingly devoted both to her father and to her Saviour. That being said, there is precious little addition insight to be gained from reading the book itself. Suor Maria Celeste's endless exhortations of recourse to faith in God while the Catholic Church, the instrument of God's work on earth attempts to silence her father from saying that the Earth orbits the Sun, seems inexplicable. I wondered if persons of faith, particularly Catholics, might be moved by this attitude, but for us non-believers, the endless upbeat faith in God's goodness in the face of privation and injustice perpetrated in the name of that same God seemed both maddening and mystifying. In short, I came away from this book with no sense of what moved Galileo's daughter. Yes, she clearly loved God and loved her father, but the reader suspected that at the outset. I found little of substance in the book to aid the understanding of the reader for the man, his daughter, their age or their church.
Rating:
Summary: Eye of the beholder
Review: It is evident from the first 102 reader reviews that Sobel's book struck people differently depending on their background and interests. Catholic or atheist, scientist or layperson, male or female: their opinion of the book may say more about them than the book. Having just read two other books on Galileo, both by Stillman Drake, my reaction to "Galileo's Daughter" was mostly negative. The book is primarily about Galileo himself and while the writing is clear and appealing, the story of his scientific and religious battles is already familiar. Even the Encyclopedia Britannica has a nicer summary. The letters from Suor Maria were indeed loving, but cloying. They failed to provide any intellectual support for the particular difficulties that Galileo faced. Sobel avoided the issue of whether her devotion was related to her financial dependence on her father (I doubt it). I should add that her letters were already well known to Galileo scholars. Drake writes (Galileo at Work, page 360, 1978) "Because this is a scientific biography,.. the many beautiful letters from Sister Maria Celeste have been omitted. She was deservedly by far the most cherished person in the world to Galileo." Like other readers, I was disappointed that the book's emotional "punchline" was unsubstantiated. I guess the facts were not enough to make this book interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Sun and daughter at the center of Galileo's universe
Review: There are three things this book is and two that it is not. (1) It is a biography. The two ancient persons that come to life in this book are Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and his illigitimate daughter Virginia Galelei (1600-1634). (2) The book is about one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the Modern Era - Galileo's proof of Nicolaus Copernicus's theory that the Earth rotates on it's own axis and revolves around the Sun. (3) 'Galileo's Daughter' is Popular History and in the best tradition of that genre of history writing we have an ending that appeals to us - the 'populous'. Now for the things the book isn't (I) It is not a new scientific explanation of the Cosmos. There is no new theory or treatsie uncovered by Sobel. (II) Although it is science and history it definitely is not dry, boring or hard to read. Sobel writes with a clear, easy narrative style that makes accessible the history of the period and the scientific ideas, and brings to life the warm and loving relationship Galileo and his daughter shared. The science of the book is centered on the following facts: In the early 16th century, Ptolemy's view of the Cosmos - Earth at the center and the heavens revolving around us - still held sway. The concept of a central, stationary Earth was in accord with the Scriptures. The Psalmist says "He set the Earth on it's foundations; it can never be moved" (Psalm 104). In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus took a more revolutionary view and made our small, humble Earth rotate, rather than have the vast heavens revolving around us. in 1610 Galileo, with telescope pointed heavenward, proved Copernicus correct. The evidence was to be found in the Moons effect on the tides - thus his 'Treatsie on the Tides. In 1616 the church examined the Copernican system and found it wanting - spiritually. Galileo was ordered to give up his support of the idea of a Sun centered Cosmos. Pope Urban VIII later softened slightly and said Galileo could use the Copernican system as a mathematical tool in astronomical calculations and he could even write about it, with one proviso - it must be treated as a theoretical concept only. Sobel makes one point very clear - one I have obscured with talking about facts - Galileo wrote with great style. It's seen in how he presented sensitive ideas; he learned to distance himself, writing "as though he were an impartial bystander". Some of it was due to concerns about what the church would think and some of it was because he was equivocal about his own ideas. Sobel says there was a battle in his mind between "the heavens he revered as a good Catholic and the heavens he revealed through his telescope". This was shown in 1633 with the publishing of his great treatsie "Dialogue On The Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican'. It took the form of a dialogue between two fictional characters, each discussing the merits of the their positions, yet never making a definitive declaration. The church saw it as a ruse and hauled the old and sick Galileo to Rome to answer to the officers of the Inqusition. Sobel describes the times - the 'Thirty Years' war was raging and the church was on the defensive against Reformation minded Protestants - and the trial - harsh and humiliating. Galileo publicly recanted his scientific beliefs but was nevertheless found guilty of challenging the authority of the church. His books were permanently banned as heretical and he was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. This is the history and these are the scientific theories of Galileo. Interesting as it may be and well written as it is, the real beauty of the book is the eponymous Galileo's daughter. Born Virginia Galilei she was the eldest of three illigitimate children Galileo had with Marina Gamba. Illigitimate and therefore unable to be married, Galileo placed her at age 13, and her younger sister, into a convent. She took the name Maria Celeste. Seperation did not affect the relationship with her father and Sobel weaves into the book, letters she wrote, beginning in 1623 and continuing up to her death in 1634 at age 33. Her letters are warm, humorous, caring and loving and show that she had a close relationship with her father. Suor Maria Celeste starched his shirt collars and made sweets for him and Galileo in return sent food and money to his daughter. There is nothing significant about this filial affection until you think about the significant events that were swirling around them. Suor Maria Celeste remained affectionate towards her father throughout his trial. The relationship never wavered even when the church she served banned the books of a man seen as an enemy of the church - a man she nevertheless still called lord father. After her death (from dysentry) Galileo wrote a friend saying that he was "filled with immense sadness and melancholy" and even years later, writing to a former student, he had her in mind "I am left with no other comfort than the memory of the sweetness of former frienships". Sobel then concludes by telling us that 95 years after Galileo's death his remains were dug up for reburial elsewhere, and two skeletons were found in his grave. The second was identified as that of a female who had died young. Sobel says "even now, no inscription on Galileo's much visited tomb in Santa Croce announces the presence of Suor Maria Celeste. But she is still there". Some may quibble about the ending, but remember, this is 'popular history' and this is about as popular and as pleasing an ending any book can have.
| 
