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Reply Literature: Highbrow, Lowbrow, and Anything Between
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

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Bookwyrme
Vice Captain

PostPosted: Sat Feb 17, 2007 1:40 pm


Sapphina got me reading this one : )

Despite its title, the book is more about Galileo than his daughter; it uses some of the letters she wrote to him, however. The two were apparently quite close; she wrote 2'ce a week or more when he was out of town.

She wrote rather than visiting because she was illegitimate & he had her & her sister placed in a convent pretty early on. Sister Maria Celeste (the eldest daughter, the one who wrote to him) seems to have been happy there, and even to have had some time to look through a telescope her father sent. If her sister wrote, none of the letters survive.

It's quite lively, interesting, and informative., and gives a human as well as a scientific view of Galileo.

The other books by Sobel that I have read , Longitude and The Planets are also very good.
PostPosted: Tue May 22, 2007 4:09 am


Bookwyrme
Sapphina got me reading this one : )

Despite its title, the book is more about Galileo than his daughter; it uses some of the letters she wrote to him, however. The two were apparently quite close; she wrote 2'ce a week or more when he was out of town.

She wrote rather than visiting because she was illegitimate & he had her & her sister placed in a convent pretty early on. Sister Maria Celeste (the eldest daughter, the one who wrote to him) seems to have been happy there, and even to have had some time to look through a telescope her father sent. If her sister wrote, none of the letters survive.

It's quite lively, interesting, and informative., and gives a human as well as a scientific view of Galileo.

The other books by Sobel that I have read , Longitude and The Planets are also very good.


I'll definitely check it out once I finish this thick volume on Byron. Thanks for the review.

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Bookwyrme
Vice Captain

PostPosted: Fri May 25, 2007 2:41 pm


It is a superb book.

What thick volume on Byron are you reading?
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Literature: Highbrow, Lowbrow, and Anything Between

 
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