Astronomers’ Library by Karen Masters

Indulge in this collection of the best astronomy books from the past 800 years. The Astronomers’ Library is a rich history of astronomy (and astrology) publishing across Europe.

This is a carefully selected arrangement of publications from all over the continent – Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the UK. And of course, as the original world leader in astrology, the middle east is featured, with multiple books from Persia.

Humankind has looked to the heavens since the dawn of time, wondering what is out there, as well as how everything works and (originally) who was responsible for it. Every tribe, race and civilization has wondered about our place in the universe and what lies beyond and what lies within it, below our feet.

Lately, attention has turned to the origins of the universe. From the turn of the millennium, knowledge and ideas were recorded, first on tablets or rock, then in the form of simple manuscripts, and eventually in a much more elaborate fashion as illustrative and engraving skills evolved.

The advent of printed books saw the production of highly illustrated tomes that showed off the skills of the printers as well as the newfound knowledge of the scholars and artists that wrote them.

Many of these works pushed the boundaries of illustrated publishing (and continue to do so to this day). They commanded expert illustrators and skilled engravers and hence didn’t come cheaply. They were treasured in the libraries of the wealthy and their intrinsic worth has meant that there is an incredible wealth of beautifully preserved historic examples from the 14th century onwards.

The significant difference we acknowledge today between astronomy and astrology has a relatively recent past, and the stars have long been associated with creatures, gods, characters and all sorts of divine beings. The study of such has a long, fascinating history that is shown in beautiful detail in the pages of these many beautiful books, and the transition from seeing the stars as characters to understanding them as spinning, celestial beings and part of our huge universe is akin to witnessing the history of the world.

Review

The blurb will tell you almost all you need to know about the book. Professor and author Karen Masters takes us through the best historical books about astronomy/astrology (as for a long time these were synonymous) from around the world. She selects best examples of books and arranges them loosely in chapters such as Star Atlases, Mapping Other Worlds, Astronomy and Culture, and Modern Astronomy – which contains a great resource list for further reading.

Rather than sticking closely to European viewpoint, entries are from all over the world with many more Islamic, Asian, and Mesoamerican examples than I’m used to seeing in similar books. The names by which they’re known might differ but the stars are the same as is the fascination of those who gazed at them and tried to understand them. I did notice a tendency for Renaissance European illustrators to include lots and lots of stargazing cheeky cherubs.

The illustrations are gorgeous and the tidbits and nuggets of information that Masters shares about her selections are fascinating. Given the layout and wealth of images, plus the fact that the digital and hardback prices aren’t that much different, it might be worth it to get a hardback copy in order to better enjoy it. The price right now will probably limit the book to hardcore enthusiasts. B

AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle

A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes by Anthony Bale

A captivating journey of the expansive world of medieval travel, from London to Constantinople to the court of China and beyond.

Europeans of the Middle Ages were the first to use travel guides to orient their wanderings, as they moved through a world punctuated with miraculous wonders and beguiling encounters. In this vivid and alluring history, medievalist Anthony Bale invites readers on an odyssey across the medieval world, recounting the advice that circulated among those venturing to the road for pilgrimage, trade, diplomacy, and war.

Journeying alongside scholars, spies, and saints, from Western Europe to the Far East, the Antipodes and the ends of the earth, Bale provides indispensable information on the exchange rate between Bohemian ducats and Venetian groats, medieval cures for seasickness, and how to avoid extortionist tour guides and singing sirens. He takes us from the streets of Rome, more ruin than tourist spot, and tours of the Khan’s court in Beijing to Mamluk-controlled Jerusalem, where we ride asses across the holy terrain, and bustling bazaars of Tabriz.

We also learn of rumored fantastical places, like ones where lambs grow on trees and giant canes grow fruit made of gems. And we are offered a glimpse of what non-European travelers thought of the West on their own travels.

Using previously untranslated contemporaneous documents from a colorful range of travelers, and from as far and wide as Turkey, Iceland, North Africa, and Russia, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages is a witty and unforgettable exploration of how Europeans understood—and often misunderstood—the larger world.

Review

This looked interesting and for the most part it was. After an opening chapter on what travel means (just keep going through this), Bale dives into various historical accounts of (mainly) Europeans venturing far from home for various reasons though the last chapter covers a few journeys made to Europe, Africa, and the Arabian peninsula by people traveling westward from China and Mongolia. 

The most time is spent on religious pilgrimages to Rome, Jerusalem, Egypt, and other parts of the Middle East by European Christians. Maybe this was covered so extensively due to the availability of texts? It’s interesting but does go on a bit. Honestly, the conditions sounded as horrendous as the pilgrims probably found them to be. Traveling simply for wanderlust or pleasure didn’t appear to be that popular though perhaps the Europeans who left home for this reason decided not to go home and thus left no records? Trade was another major incentive to leave home and several merchants and traders left accounts of what they went through trying to buy and sell or set up trade hubs and links in foreign lands.   

The book jumps back and forth from various sources to cover different aspects of a typical journey that might have been made rather than sticking with one person’s narrative for a whole trip. Some travelers were enthusiastic while others were grimly determined and also expecting things to be ghastly. For pilgrims, the suffering along the way seemed to enhance the payoff of the trip (shortening time in Purgatory by years or totally for those who made it to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem but check the 1450 guide in Rome to see exactly what indulgences are available and how much time you’ll save or how to get one soul out of Purgatory!). Some traders loved the chance to see new places while others caught cities or rulers having a bad day. One Chinese traveler was awestruck by Hormuz while a Mongolian Christian enjoyed sitting in a beautiful garden in Naples overlooking a sea battle.  

Bale doesn’t shy away from the fact that – just like today – people had their prejudices and preconceptions. Some of these are racist. Some people are great to travel with while others are grumps. What got written about depended on what a person thought was important rather than what we might love to read about today. 

Several fun tidbits of information are included such as an exchange rate so you know how far your plapparts will take you (also change money in Bruges where there’s a bank), don’t forget a staff (support and beating off bandits) and a bag, where to find a licensed guide in Venice who won’t cheat you while booking your travel on to the Holy Land, some travel costs in Egypt and the Holy Land (just accept that you’re going to be stiffed for money all along the way), that the locals who aren’t making money off of you will probably be annoyed by you (jeering and stone throwing are probable), some handy phrases translated into Greek, Albanian, Turkish, and Arabic, medical advice for those traveling overseas (some of which is … not bad), India has both manticores and unicorns, and when traveling from Tana to Khanbaliq (Beijing) don’t be chintzy when hiring a dragoman – splash out and hire a good one,. 

The little snapshots of things I hadn’t expected – life in a caravanserai (like a modern travel pit stop); that people from all over the world had traveled much farther into distant lands than I expected; that an Italian saw and saved two Tartars in bondage in Italy, one of whom he’d met before on his travels – were what made the book for me. It ends with sources, references, and further reading.  When it’s all said and done, it appears that travelers and traveling experiences haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. B      

AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle

Otherworldly Antarctica: Ice, Rock, and Wind at the Polar Extreme by Edmund Stump

With stunning original photographs, an Antarctic scientist and explorer takes us to one of the most sublime, remote, and pristine regions on the planet.

The interior of Antarctica is an utterly pristine wilderness, a desolate landscape of ice, wind, and rock; a landscape so unfamiliar as to seem of another world. This place has been known to only a handful of early explorers and the few scientists fortunate enough to have worked there. Edmund Stump is one of the lucky few. Having climbed, photographed, and studied more of the continent-spanning Transantarctic Mountains than any other person on Earth, this geologist, writer, and photographer is uniquely suited to share these alien sights.

With stories of Stump’s forty years of journeys and science, Otherworldly Antarctica contains 130 original color photographs, complemented by watercolors and sketches by artist Marlene Hill Donnelly. Over three chapters—on the ice, the rock, and the wind—we meet snowy paths first followed during Antarctica’s Heroic Age, climb the central spire of the Organ Pipe Peaks, peer into the crater of the volcanic Mount Erebus, and traverse Liv Glacier on snowmobile, while avoiding fatal falls into the blue interiors of hidden crevasses. Along the way, we see the beauty of granite, marble, and ice-cored moraines, meltwater ponds, lenticular clouds, icebergs, and glaciers. Many of Stump’s breathtaking images are aerial shots taken from the planes and helicopters that brought him to the interior. More were shot from vantages gained by climbing the mountains he studied. Some were taken from the summits of peaks. Many are of places no one had set foot before—or has since. All seem both permanent and precarious, connecting this otherworld to our fragile own.

Review

Fifty years ago, geologist Edmund Stump began a love affair with the beautiful but also brutal world of Antarctica. Luckily for us, he’s also a great photographer and he snapped gorgeous pictures of the continent while doing scientific research there. Major bonus points that he accomplished this in an age before drones.

Think of purest white—the brilliance of all colors—and fathomless blue. Sprinkle in a few dark rocks and the total lack of green and you have Antarctica’s minimal pallet.

If someone offered me a chance to visit Antarctica, I’d be hard pressed to turn it down regardless of my risk of panic attacks while flying. Seriously, it wouldn’t be pretty. But if I could see IRL what I see in these images? I might take a deep breath, live better with chemistry, and go for it.

We were suspended on a transparent surface surrounded by bits and pieces of sparkling crystal, tinged blue beneath the waterline. A dome of matte gray illuminated the shadowless landscape. Ringing the cove were steep walls of ice fed by glaciers from the slopes above. Their faces bore the scars of tension and release where they had calved the icebergs that spread throughout the cove. The ice of the walls was young, only faintly blushing blue.

The book is divided into three sections: Ice, Rocks, and Wind. Stump adds geographic information for each image as well as describes his time there. There is a lot of scientific geology-speak to explain what readers are looking at which is helpful but Stump is also awed by his surroundings.

In the lifeless world of Antarctica, the wind is an animate force active in human-time— miles per hour, a heartbeat. It may be fierce, it may be calm, it may be steady, it may be restless or fickle or faint. Sometimes it isn’t even there at all. It is the bearer of cloud and the deliverer of snow. It can be a fearsome force, roiling through the mountains.

I found myself spending more time studying photos, inhaling this truly “otherworldly” place. Some photos made the landscape appear to be an intimate 50 or so feet across only to have the author reveal a scale of miles instead. Other images are up close and have a span of mere twelve inches. This is another book which is probably best as a coffee table hardback edition. B

If I had one hour more to savor Antarctica, it would be on a névé—a snowfield, circled at a distance by low mountains, snow gracefully rising to narrow ridgelines. A light breeze would nip my nose to remind me of where I was. The midnight sun would be low in the southern sky, casting long shadows and a faint alpine glow. And I would be standing in the midst of a field of the most exquisite sastrugi—wind-carved snow—as far as the eye could see.

AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle

An intimate look at the Moon and its relationship to life on Earth–from the primordial soup to the Artemis launches–from an acclaimed Scientific American and Atlantic contributor

Far from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science’s central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.

The Moon stabilizes the Earth’s tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.

But the Moon also played a pivotal role in our conceptual development. While the Sun helped humans to mark daily time, hunters and gatherers used the phases of the Moon to count months and years, allowing them to situate themselves in time and plan for the future. Its role in the development of religion—Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon’s position to make predictions about the Moon god–created the earliest known empirical, scientific observation.

Boyle deftly reframes the history of scientific discovery through a lunar lens, from Mesopotamia to the present day. Touching on ancient astronomers including Claudius Ptolemy; ancient philosophers from Anaxagoras to Plutarch; the scientific revolution of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; and the lunar fiction of writers like Jules Verne–which inspired Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist who succeeded in landing humans on the Moon–Boyle charts our path with the Moon from the origins of human civilization to the Apollo landings and up to the present.

Even as astronauts around the world prepare to return to the Moon, opening up new frontiers of discovery, profit, and politics, Our Moon brings the Moon down to Earth.

Review

I’ve read a lot of books about space exploration and specifically NASA’s Apollo missions but what interested me about reading this book was that it would cover more about the Moon than just that. Earth has a long history with the Moon and I wanted to read about that. The book is divided into sections, some of which worked better for me than others. Be aware that for the most part, it has a very European/Middle Eastern focus with only brief references to Chinese astronomers and a slight detour to discuss First Puebloans in North America.

It may be pedantic of me but there are some flubs that I hope have been corrected before publication. Boyle discusses how the Moon retains a geologic record of asteroid and meteor impacts while, due to wind, water and subduction, the Earth does not have any.

“Combined with wind, water is a destroyer of worlds. Entire mountain ranges rise and fall through the work of water. It also erases craters. Though the timing and duration of the beating are still up for debate, we know Earth was bombarded by asteroids long ago, and yet there are no battle scars to show for it.”

Um yes, there are. Vredefort Crater, Chicxulub Crater, Sudbury Crater, Popigai Crater, Manicouagan Crater, Acraman Crater, Morokweng Crater, Kara Crater, Beaverhead Crater, Meteor Crater, and the Chesapeake Bay Crater are just the top eleven ones. Also there are some things such as not listing BCE/CE/or adding no notation at all to certain dates as well as some other pesky things like listing a temperature with both Fahrenheit and Kelvin degrees in one place but then only one in the other. Why? Okay I admit that these are inconsequential but if you’re writing a book with facts, get them correct and consistent so I don’t begin to doubt anything else in the book.

The first section is mostly science based and focused on astronomy. There’s lots of science here including various past and present ideas about how our Moon was formed, how planets were (probably) formed, and many scientific terms used for all this. Apollo missions feature in it a lot. For some reason I had difficulty plowing my way through this part and had to force myself to focus a lot.

Part two is what I view as more anthropologically focused and I loved it. Could the moon have influenced the development of life on Earth? Then once the tidal pool of amino acids yielded life, the wildly swinging tides of areas with lots of fossil evidence of the lobed fishes might have been where life crawled out of the oceans and onto land. The author makes some compelling arguments and backs them up with information about the scientific experiments being done now as well as fossils that have been discovered.

Boyle visits locations (mainly in Scotland) and discusses discoveries (such as the Nebra Sky Disc) which point out how Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built spaces and things to possibly track the Moon to tell future time and correct drifts between solstices and Moon based time keeping. The narrative then shifts to ancient Mesopotamia and their Moon God and how a king’s devotion to this deity might have led to the downfall of the Babylonian empire. Ancient Greeks watched the Moon’s movements but they, along with Ptolemy, and the view of an infallible Bible screwed up European beliefs for over a millennium. It took until the late sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries to begin to accept Moon and planetary movements as they really are.

The book finishes up with a bit of discussion on if/should/will we journey back to the Moon and the implications of this. Businesses are the ones driving this and businesses are usually for profit. Is it right to turn the Moon into a business venture and who will profit? As I said, I enjoyed some parts of the book more than others but it gave me plenty of cool information and things to think about. B-

~Jayne

AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle

Linked to a special mini season of the award-winning StarTalk podcast, this enlightening illustrated narrative by the world’s most celebrated astrophysicist explains the universe from the solar system to the farthest reaches of space with authority and humor.

No one can make the mysteries of the universe more comprehensible and fun than Neil deGrasse Tyson. Drawing on mythology, history, and literature—alongside his trademark wit and charm—Tyson and StarTalk senior producer Lindsey Nyx Walker bring planetary science down to Earth and principles of astrophysics within reach. In this entertaining book, illustrated with vivid photographs and art, readers travel with him through space and time, starting with the Big Bang and voyaging to the far reaches of the universe and beyond. Along the way, science greets pop culture as Tyson explains the triumphs—and bloopers—in Hollywood’s blockbusters: all part of an entertaining ride through the cosmos.

The book begins as we leave Earth, encountering new truths about our planet’s atmosphere, the nature of sunlight, and the many missions that have demystified our galactic neighbors. But the farther out we travel, the weirder things get. What’s a void and what’s a vacuum? How can light be a wave and a particle at the same time? When we finally arrive in the blackness of outer space, Tyson takes on the spookiest phenomena of the cosmos: parallel worlds, black holes, time travel, and more.

For science junkies and fans of the conundrums that astrophysicists often ponder, To Infinity and Beyond is an enlightening adventure into the farthest reaches of the cosmos.

Review

Advances in telescopes and auxiliary technologies continually upend our assumptions about the universe and our place within it, by showing us the universe for what it is, rather than how it appears to our senses— and how it appeals to our fragile ego.

Who knows when a human first looked upwards and realized there was an out-there to wonder about. We have cave paintings and rock carvings dating to 40,000 years ago that depict not only animals but also comets, meteors, and constellations. Now, we’ve got really cool methods to learn about what is “up and out there.” But before we head off into space, we need to know all about our planet. From those early examples of humans thinking about what’s up in the sky, through discussions about the different levels of Earth’s atmosphere, air pressure, the Coriolis Effect, where’s the best location on Earth to place your launch facility, Felix Baumgartner’s “jump from the edge of space,” to all the junk now circling the planet we learn some pretty amazing stuff.

Then it’s time to look at our solar system starting with our sun (it emits all colors so actually it’s white rather than yellow/amber) that depends on “thermonuclear fusion—the contained nuclear bombs that continuously detonate within the Sun’s hot, dense core—[as] the only defense against its own gravity, the only thing preventing its collapse.” You’d think Mercury would be blazing hot but its shadowed canyon temperatures actually stay far below freezing. Venus is a hellscape of greenhouse warming gone insane but no, the Earth probably will never equal that.

Our Moon not only affects Earth’s tides but has also slowed, and continues to slow, our planet down as our days once zipped by in about five hours. It was his study of the orbit of Mars that led Kepler to develop his laws of planetary motion. At one point in history, four planets – Vesta, Ceres, Juno, and Pallas – were thought to be in the space between Mars and Jupiter. The largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter is 1300 times the size of Earth which is not as big as the longest lasting storm in the solar system – the Great Red Spot. The ring system of Saturn extends millions of miles from the planet but in most places is only a few hundred feet thick. The British discoverer of Uranus, which has vertical rings and orbits on its side, tried to name it after George III while Neptune has the fastest winds in the solar system. As for Pluto and Planet X — Pluto is now counted as a dwarf planet and Planet X never existed. Sadly we still don’t know much about the outer edges of our solar system.

Now when we head into outer space, my mind begins to stutter. What is “space” and what is “gravity?” Is space empty and is there zero gravity? No, the cosmic “vacuum” isn’t empty and all objects exert a force of gravity that extends to infinity. Hello spacetime continuum. LeGrand points, Mach speeds, supernova shockwaves, and the theory that in our past, nearby (50 light years) supernovae contributed to extinction events on Earth intrigued me. Ask yourself, if we are surrounded by billions of stars all constantly emitting light (which travels through the “vacuum” of space) why is the night dark. Then let the authors explain why.

The last section – whoa. It takes us “where space and time warp beyond recognition. We travel into the past and into the future; we move at speeds faster than light; and we recognize, as far as our human awareness can carry us, what it means to travel to infinity and beyond.” Special relativity, dark energy, and time dilation are beautifully described but still make my head hurt thinking about them. Quantum foam … let’s not even go there. Time travel, alas, doesn’t appear to be possible or at least if it is, then why did no one from the future travel back to Steven Hawking’s Reception for Time Travelers?

The book is strewn with breathtaking photographs. Little nuggets of interesting history and science facts are tucked in amongst the discussions. The Incredible Hulk? Not so credible. Maverick surviving an ejection from a fighter traveling at Mach 10? He’d end up like a bug on a windshield. Most space travel and time travel in movies – all wrong. Remember – the Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. Let this book help you when the Universe thumbs its nose at you. B

~Jayne

Scientific thinking always leaves the door ajar for the seemingly impossible. So perhaps we exaggerate—but only just a little—when we declare that infinity is only a moment’s pause on the way to unlimited destinations that await us. For all we know, our cosmic journey has only just begun.

AmazonBNKoboBook DepositoryGoogle