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bettie

Bettie's Books

A Stuga On the Cusp of the Orust Riviera, tucked away next to a hobbit hole in the woods.

Galileo's Dream - Kim Stanley Robinson one penny hardback brand spanking new first edition!first line - All of a sudden Galileo felt that this moment had happened before - that he had been standing in the artisans' Friday market outside Venice's Arsenale and felt someone's gaze on him, and looked up to see a man staring at him, a tall stranger with a beaky narrow face.Solid 3*. At points even a 4*, however some things just didn't sit quite right e.g the verbal anachronisms heaped upon Galileo's internal dialogue (The f word? ORLY!? Wouldn't swear words back then would have been the same as they are in Sweden still, religious profanities *shrugs*). A good biography, lots of splendid science, the historical period down to a tee (except that forementioned cussing and a question as to whether coffee was availible in Italy back then) so why not more than 3.5*? Since Moxysox has taught me to look for tone, I cannot not look for it and have discovered just how many books don't have it and this was the problem here. Cherenkov Radiation-----From wiki - The Accademia dei Lincei, (literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but also known as the Lincean Academy), is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy.Founded in 1603 by Federico Cesi, it was the first academy of sciences to persist in Italy and a locus for the incipient scientific revolution. The academy was named after the lynx, an animal whose sharp vision symbolizes the observational prowess required by science. It was revived in the 1870s to become the national academy of Italy, encompassing both literature and science among its concerns.----Io----Galileo facing the Roman Inquisition, painting by Cristiano Banti (1857)ganymedeCallisto