Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

When my husband reads a book he thinks I should read, he leaves the book on my computer chair. It is his not so subtle way of saying, "You ought to read this book!" I found Dava Sobel's Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love on my chair one day. History should be told just like a story with an interesting plot, characters who aren't one dimensional -- very good or just plain evil and a setting in which the culture (and its impact on the story) are well defined. Galileo's Daughter is a good story from history. 

Suor Maria Celeste Galilei's (Galileo's oldest daughter) story survives in letters she wrote to her father. Their relationship serves as a background to tell the story of Galileo's pursuit of science and the inquisition that determined he was a heretic for supporting Nicolai Copernicus' theory of a sun-centered universe.

"As to the first general question of Madama Cristina, it seems to me that it was most prudently propounded to you by her, and conceded and established by you, that Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. I should only have added that, though Scriptures cannot err, its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways... when they would base themselves always on the literal meaning of the words. For in this wise not only many contradictions would be apparent, but even grave heresies and blasphemies, since then it would be necesary to give God hands and fee and eyes and human and bodily emotions such as anger, regret, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of things past and ignorance of the future." (page 63) ~ Galileo in a letter to Benedetto Castelli discussing the subject of science and religion

After I finished the book, I added Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, the book that got Galileo into so much trouble to my Amazon wishlist. According to Christopher Morley, "The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking." Galileo's Daughter served that purpose; it ignited a desire to learn more.