With her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel introduced readers to her rare gift for weaving complex scientific concepts into a compelling narrative. Now Sobel brings her full talents to bear on what is perhaps her most ambitious topic to date-the planets of our solar system. Sobel explores the origins and oddities of the planets through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history. Written in her characteristically graceful prose, The Planets is a stunningly original celebration of our solar system and offers a distinctive view of our place in the universe.
• A New York Times extended bestseller
• A Featured Alternate of the Book-of-the-Month Club, History Book Club, Scientific American Book Club, and Natural Science Book Club
• Includes 11 full-color illustrations by artist Lynette R. Cook BACKCOVER: "[The Planets] lets us fall in love with the heavens all over again."
-The New York Times Book Review
"Playful . . . lyrical . . . a guided tour so imaginative that we forget we're being educated as we're being entertained."
-Newsweek
" [Sobel] has outdone her extraordinary talent for keeping readers enthralled. . . . Longitude and Galileo's Daughter were exciting enough, but The Planets has a charm of its own . . . . A splendid and enticing book."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"A sublime journey. [Sobel's] writing . . . is as bright as the sun and its thinking as star-studded as the cosmos."
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"An incantatory serenade to the Solar System. Grade A-"
-Entertainment Weekly
"Like Sobel's [Longitude and Galileo's Daughter] . . . [The Planets] combines masterful storytelling with clear, engaging explanations of the essential scientific facts."
-Physics World
Model Worlds
(Overview)
Genesis
(The Sun)
Mythology
(Mercury)
Beauty
(Venus)
Geography
(Earth)
Lunacy
(The Moon)
Sci-Fi
(Mars)
Astrology
(Jupiter)
Music of the Spheres
(Saturn)
Night Air
(Uranus and Neptune)
UFO
(Pluto)
Planeteers
(Coda)
Acknowledgments Glossary Details Bibliography Index
Anonymous
Posted November 30, 2005
I really enjoyed this book. I had to read a book for my Nature of Science class and the book I initially picked out wasn't cutting it so in a panic I picked up The Planets. I wasn't really expecting much - in fact I thought it was going to be pretty boring. I was pleasently suprised. It was a great book and anyone who has the slighest interest in the solar system will love this book. Dava employs several different writing styles to captiveate her audience. A martain rocks story, the discover of Uranus and Neptune, the search for planet X and Vulcan...
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.In this series of essays, Sobel weaves together popular culture,discovery and scientific study, and the personalities involved. Her essay span the history of science and world cultures to give a captivating account of our solar system. She truly captures the awe of astronomy. Highly recommended.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I've read and been delighted by Longitude and Galileo's Daughter so when I came across "The Planets." I was intrigued and wanted to read it. I knew even before I bought the book that it would be nothing like the other two by Dava Sobel, but by now she has established herself as a great writer and I trusted her and her instincts. If she wanted to take an unorthodox trip across the Solar System, I was all too willing to buy a ticket for the journey. And it was a refreshingly new look at the landscape that I thought I had already known all too well and have become a bit jaded with. Part informative, part imaginative this book both entertains and educates. It is well suited for both young and old readers. Each planet gets its own "voice" and is approached and dealt with from a unique point of view. The two works of art - one in fiction one in music - which this book reminds me of are Italo Calvino's "Cosmicomics" and Gustav Holst's "The Planets." Like Calvino and Holst, Dava Sobel possesses a rare gift of imagination and skill to bring a potentially dry subject and weave it into something that entices us and enthralls us. That's why I decided to recommend this book to my college Astronomy class that I teach this year.
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Posted March 26, 2011
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Posted December 22, 2008
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Posted April 18, 2010
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Overview
With her bestsellers Longitude and Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel introduced readers to her rare gift for weaving complex scientific concepts into a compelling narrative. Now Sobel brings her full talents to bear on what is perhaps her most ambitious topic to date-the planets of our solar system. Sobel explores the origins and oddities of the planets through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history. Written in her characteristically ...