Reviews for Brother astronomer

The average rating for Brother astronomer based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-09-01 00:00:00 Ronald Adkins Obviously, I gave it 5 stars, so I love this book. Your mileage WILL vary, because the last third of the book (the trip to Antarctica to collect meteorites) is not going to be about a subject and personalities that you know, love, and cite in your refereed journal articles. I hope you enjoy it anyway, but it won't be as much as I did. In fact that's not confined to the last third of the book, but it's present here and there throughout. If you're interested in learning a LOT about what current (well, the 70s to the 90s, since this is a memoir written in what, 2002?) planetary science is like, please do yourself a favor and pick up this book. Even more so if you're actually a Christian. Another endearing part of this book is the author's humility. He's quite aware that he's not the world's greatest anything, and in fact he makes it pretty clear his religious superiors ordered him to put together this memoir because they think his life and vocation has been worth sharing. In response, he really minimizes his own role. As he retells his life, he is at subtle pains to make it clear that he was NEVER the smartest guy in the room, and that the academic success he has had has been due in no small part to being in the right place at the right time. Guy is, ironically, a pretty simple guy who happens to always have been in love with God and at the same time with His creation in a very real and detailed way.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-12-14 00:00:00 Alex White Written by a former university physicist, current Jesuit priest and astronomer at the Vatican, the book was interesting mostly because I'd never read anything by anyone with that mix of backgrounds. The book jumped between genres - a couple science-y chapters explaining his current work (curator of largest collection of meteorites in the world), some chapters devoted to his life story, a few chapters were his essays on topics of interest (how religious types and scientists are misunderstood by each other and the general public, drawing connections between the methods of both), an amusing chapter about whether one should baptize intelligent life from other planets. And several chapters about his adventure camping in Antarctica driving around on snowmobiles looking for meteorites. He has an amazing life to tell (he also volunteered for the peace corps teaching astronomy in Africa) and a unique perspective. In some places, the casual folksy style grated on me a bit - and since the book was basically a collection of his talks and stories, some I loved and others I could do without.