Reviews for The Soul of the Night : An Astronomical Pilgrimage

The average rating for The Soul of the Night : An Astronomical Pilgrimage based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-01-11 00:00:00 Goerge Black Raymo writes: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, said Henry David Thoreau, and if his book continues to attract us it is because we are desperate. In desperation, I turn to night as Thoreau turned to his pond. I measure those starry spaces with the same care of rods and chains that the naturalist of Concord used to measure Walden. Thoreau plumbed the depths of Walden Pond and marked them on his map. He surveyed the fish that lived in the waters of the pond, he catalogued its weeds, and during winter he recorded the thicknesses of the ice. It was a part of his balance book, an accounting of his riches, a reckoning of a fortune that was there for the taking. These, said Thoreau—the measures, the depths, the thicknesses—are a man’s true economy.” The author is a retired physics professor, astronomer, naturalist. And I should add a poetic writer of prose. One of the best scientist/writers putting pen to paper today. The most delicious book about the night sky I have ever read. But there's more here than stars, galaxies and empty space. Just a wonderful, wonderful book of collected essays.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-12-07 00:00:00 David Mcknight It's been a long time since I've read as moving, insightful, and beautiful a book as this, so long I'd almost thought those days were behind me, days that went with the discovery of late adolescence and early adulthood. Here I was happily proved wrong. Think Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek meets Timothy Ferris' Coming of Age in the Milky Way meets Loren Eiseley's Immense Journey. In this book, Raymo continually goes back and forth between earthly images and things, like birds, and fish, and flowers, to the universal wonders of the night sky, galaxies and constellations, weaving them together into a continuous cosmic whole. He often quotes poetry, and it is heartbreakingly beautiful poetry, but his writing is itself poetry, while also discussing real science of astronomy, elaborating on quasars, galaxies, and much else. I'd love to include some quotes from this book to show how exquisite the writing is, but I'd have to quote most of the book. Just read it, and thank me later. As for me, this one's going onto my favorites shelf, and I'll be hunting out more books by Chet Raymo. By the by, I also enjoyed the lovely woodblock engravings found throughout.