Thursday, September 3, 2009

Book Review: Galileo's daughter

This book looked terribly interesting, but ultimately it was disappointing. It tells the story of Galileo's daughter, and contains translations of her letters to him throughout his life. I expected it to be more ironically entertaining (she was a nun while he was condemned by for heresy), and more profound. Unfortunately, it seems that Galileo's internal struggle of reconciling his faith as a Catholic and his role as a heretical scientist was not recorded very thoroughly. The majority of the book was taken up with trite, commonplace details. If you do read this book, you can get what the book has to offer by reading the few chapters that deal directly with his infamous trial and its immediate aftermath.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

I read this book several years ago for a world civ class. I rather enjoyed the little details and seeing the relationship between father and daughter through letters. I think I will have to read it again and see what I think.

Ruth said...

You guys should be on goodreads.

Mary said...

Sounds interesting. By the way the girls miss you. They loved having grandma here but she couldn't wrestle them or let them ride on her back.

Astromom said...

They read this in my book group, it was so large and overwhelming and seemed sort of boring so I didn't get past the first few pages, but my book group agreed with you, not the best, some interesting details, but not quite what they expected and hardly anyone finished the thing.