With her blockbuster New York Times bestsellers Longitude and Galileo’s Daughter, Dava Sobel used her rare and luminous gift for weaving difficult scientific concepts into a compelling story to garner rave reviews and attract readers from across the literary spectrum. Now, in The Planets, Sobel brings her full talents to bear on what is perhaps her most ambitious subject to date—the planets of our solar system.
The sun’s family of planets become a familiar place in this personal account of the lives of other worlds. Sobel explores the planets’ origins and oddities through the lens of popular culture, from astrology, mythology, and science fiction to art, music, poetry, biography, and history. A perfect gift and a captivating journey, The Planets is a gorgeously illustrated study of our place in the universe that will mesmerize everyone who has ever gazed with awe at our night sky.
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The Planets
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
“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
