Dava Sobel

After the huge national and international success of ‘Longitude’ and ‘Gallileo’s Daughter’, Dava Sobel tells the human story of the nine planets of our solar system.

The Planets

Explores the creation and evolution of the solar system's planets through a lens of popular culture, drawing on sources from astrology, science fiction, the fine arts, and other genres to chronicle planetary history in an accessible format.

madina

an astronomy book not looking down at astrology & actually incorporating the myths and stories and history about the planets? i love it

Jeni Enjaian

I picked up this book while waiting for "Longitude" (highly recommended by one of my history professors). I did not know what to expect and was pleasantly blown away by Ms. Sobel's magnificent prose. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the traditional nine planets. (Uranus and Neptune were covered in a single chapter.) 
Ms. Sobel's prose flows in a manner unexpected from a book about a scientific topic. She chooses vocabulary according to the theme of each chapter without becoming pedestrian. For example, Ms. Sobel begins the chapter on Saturn with a beautiful description of Holst's beautiful symphony "Planets", one of my own favorites. When Ms. Sobel moves from discussing the music to discussing the planet the prose shows no noticeable shift. Words such as "resonate", "beat", "dynamics", and "volume" fill the text.
I highly recommend this book.

The Planets

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