A Book recommendation

Here's a little reading recommendation if you've got some extra time on your hands (like anyone does?!).

I recently finished Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter - an excellent read. It tracks the life of the scholar and star-gazing philosopher through his personal correspondence, mainly that of letters received from one of his two daughters, Suor Maria Celeste. This historical narrative is an unbelievably personal retelling of one man's story... one man who impacted all of human history. I had a very small knowledge base of the man and his merits (most of which I discovered to be fictional accounts rather than true history - i.e. the whole dropping cannon balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa tale). Sobel neatly weaves the letters written to and from Galileo to tell his story. The lens of Galileo's personal life makes the scientific discoveries and principles that he established a little easier for a novice like myself to understand. This book was an easy read in short chapters, making it easy to pick up and put down.

Most fascinating to me were the 'trials' that Galileo endured for his teaching and writings on the Copernican system. And I was struck by how firmly the church and greater society held so vehemently to what it knew to be 'true,' using Scripture to 'prove' it. It makes me ponder what 'truths' we hold on to today which will one day proved to be scientifically false. As well, I did not realize that Galileo made more contributions to the study of physics than he really did anything else. We always see him as the astronomer first, which he was certainly passionate about; however, he dabbled in many fields of study, including but not limited to, astronomy, physics, philosophy, mathematics, music, literature, and gardening.

The sweet father-daughter relationship that Galileo held with his cloistered oldest child was a mystery to me. I really did not even know that he had children at all, so it was beautiful to see their relationship play out its dimensions on the pages. Their relationship had such a great deal of intimacy, despite her confinement to her order and convent at San Matteo.

The book actually had a surprise finish to it, which is very difficult to pull off in a non-fiction work. It excited me so greatly that I'd love to share it with you, but I won't ruin it in the hopes that you'll decide to read it yourself. It's an enjoyable, luxury read that has me exploring Galileo Galilei in greater depth. I've now endeavored to read Galileo in Rome by Shea (Scientific historian) and Artigas (philosopher/priest). It retells Galileo's life through his six journeys to Rome. So far, it's comparable; however, not as smooth of a read.

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Galileo Galilei