"Galileo's Daughter" is a favourite of mine and is a book based on Galileo's letters to his eldest daughter (none of hers survive). He put his two illigitimate daughters into a closed order (Poor Clare's) where they lived in great hardship from 10 years old. He meant everything to his eldest daughter, Sr Marie Celeste, who often wrote to him pleading for tiny sums of money. He was one of the most famous inventors of his day. His invented telescope allowed him to see Jupiter's moons and to confirm the theory of Copernicus that the Earth revolved around the sun, a matter which brought him before the Inquisition on heresy charges. She died of dissentry aged 34. The man who had seen further than anyone became blind and a 16 year old boy lived with him and when Galileo died, the boy buried the father and daughter in identical coffins. In 1992 the Pope confirmed Galileo was correct! Galileo is the name given to the spacecraft that studied the moons of Jupiter.
And I also loved this book very much, by the female author, Dava Sobel. It describes the painstaking work and the rejection and acceptance of John Harrison:- Longitude - The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. This is a dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest: the search for the solution of how to calculate longitude and the unlikely triumph of an English genius. Anyone alive in the 18th century would have known that ‘the longitude problem’ was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day – and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.
The quest for a solution had occupied scientists and their patrons for the better part of two centuries when, in 1714, Parliament upped the ante by offering a king’s ransom (£20,000) to anyone whose method or device proved successful. Countless quacks weighed in with preposterous suggestions. The scientific establishment throughout Europe – from Galileo to Sir Isaac Newton – had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution. Full of heroism and chicanery, brilliance and the absurd, the book is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation and clockmaking.
Two books I would like to recommend by Simon Winchester :- ‘The Map that Changed the World - A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption’: This is an extraordinary story of William Smith who became the father of modern geology. Hidden behind velvet curtains above a stairway in a house in London's Piccadilly is an enormous and beautiful hand-coloured map - the first geological map of anywhere in the world. Its maker was William Smith, a farmer's son. Born in 1769, he noticed that the land has striations and within these are various colours of soil and minerals. He embarked upon walking and riding the British countryside to prove his theory that would open the world to mining of all kinds. His life was beset by troubles: he was imprisoned for debt, turned out of his home, his work was plagiarised, his wife went insane and the scientific establishment shunned him. It was not until 1829, when a Yorkshire aristocrat recognised his genius, that he was returned to London in triumph: The Map That Changed the World is his amazing story.
And the other by Winchester is, ‘The Surgeon of Crowthorne - A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Oxford English Dictionary’. Sir James Murray was the chief editor of the OED and by way of advertising, met the extraordinary William Minor who was his greatest supporter in the making of the first dictionary.
Sir James Murray was a talented linguist and had other scholarly interests, and had taught in schools and worked in banking. Faced with the enormous task of producing a comprehensive dictionary, with a quotation illustrating the uses of each meaning of each word, and with evidence for the earliest use of each, Murray enlisted the help of dozens of amateur philologists as volunteer researchers. The book tells the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, William Chester Minor a retired United States Army Surgeon. Minor was, at the time, imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the village of Crowthorne, in Berkshire, England.
And 3 of my favourite books are by Graham Robb :- In order to discover the 'real' France, Graham Robb cycled 14,000 miles to do his research. The Discovery of France illuminating, engrossing and full of surprises with its ancient Gallic tribal and clan customs, local legends, fairies, dolmens, festivals, pilgrimages, and its pagan and Christian past. Robb introduced me to the life of pedlars, the extraordinary cagots, head shaping constrictors, the dreadful life of the poorest children who walked 50 miles a day, stilt walking, rescue and smuggler dogs, animal fighting, and the pilgrimage routes from Compostella, via Rocamadour to Le Puy en Velay. We read accounts of the Revolution, of Madame Defarge knitting beside the guillotine, and Napoleon's battle at Waterloo; and a country famous for its intellectuals, its philosophers and writers, its fashion, food and wine.
Graham Robb’s ‘The Ancient Paths - Discovering the Lost Map of Celtic Europe’ was inspired by Robb’s fascination with the world of the Celts: their gods, their art, and, most of all, their sophisticated knowledge of science. His investigations gradually revealed something extraordinary: a lost map, of an empire constructed with precision and beauty across vast tracts of Europe. The map had been forgotten for almost two millennia and its implications are astonishing. Minutely researched and rich in revelations, The Ancient Paths brings to life centuries of distant history and reinterprets pre-Roman Europe. Told with all of Robb's grace and verve, it is a dazzling, unforgettable book! Incredible! Not to be forgotten, by Robb, is France - An Adventure History, all places en route are detailed by this amazing storyteller. Wars, the Cathar treasure site, the inquisitions, Versailles, an old ash tree, the murder of Mdm Bovary, the Tour de France which was taken by apprentices long before the cycle race!
And of the gypsy folk, ‘Lavengro’, and ‘The Romany Rye’ by George Borrow, adventurer and explorer. George Borrow was an amazing character. He taught himself to speak foreign languages by getting a Bible in English and the language he wished to speak.
My favourite book, once again an old one, and a translation from the original French is “Jesus In His Time”, by Daniel-Rops. A magnificent writer, deeply intimate with the land of Judea and Israel, a biblical scholar of great capacity and renown, who also understood clearly the Jewish faith.
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