Rating: 
Summary: A complete memoir
Review: I thought this would be historical fiction, a novel, and when its turn came to read, and I picked it up to figure out what it was, I got really excited about what I was about to learn. Inside the front cover, it reads, "Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics -- indeed of modern science altogher." I noted the diagrams and illustrations of the people, Galileo's equations and inventions.
But what I didn't anticipate was the kind of learning I would be exposed to and how moving the book would be. It turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read, incorporating so many facets in a well-written memoir that challenged and fulfilled.
Of course, I learned quite a bit about the advance of understanding of science and the universe from the story of Galileo's life. His father wanted him to be a physician, but he preferred mathematics and matriculated at the University in Pisa. From there, he took various positions in Italy, eventually ending up as court philosopher and mathematician for the Medici family in Florence. Under their patronage, he was able to maintain the income of a professorship in another city without having to show up to teach. He invented tools to supplement his income, and had three children with a woman he didn't marry, two daughters and a son. The daughters he placed in a convent in Florence, thinking they would be unlikely to marry due to their illegitimacy (apparently, scholars often remained unmarried), and the son he eventually legitimized through a church action. Sobel writes of the progression of Galileo's understanding of the universe after procuring a telescope and modifying it to improve his vision of the sky. He also concentrated heavily on the laws of motion.
Galileo was deeply religious and deeply devoted to the Catholic Church; he was also "connected" through his work as court philosopher for the Medicis in Florence. Though the pope who preceded Urban VIII was not a friend to Galileo and resisted Galileo's advancement of Copernicus's theory of the sun as the center of the universe, rather than the earth, Urban VIII knew Galileo, and the mathematician was able to have an audience with him soon after he ascended to the office. (Though this relationship would have to submit in the end to Urban's declining political position and would not save Galileo from the inquisitors.)
What emerges here is the incredible control over the minds of its subjects the Catholic church enjoyed/enforced in Italy in the 1500s and 1600s. While those Catholics outside Italy were more likely to dispense with papal orders, those within Italy lived in a society structured to control them rigorously. Loyal Galileo, while writing his Dialogue that sought to educate readers on the various theories of the movement of the universe, submitted his work to official inquisitors, the pope's advisers, etc., and willingly changed what they instructed him to out of deference to the church.
The daughter of this book's title is Virginia, whose name became Maria Celeste when she took her vows as a Poor Clare in her convent near Florence. Her younger sister also took vows at the convent, but was not close to her father, and was an unwilling, whining, hypochondriacal nun. In this book, Suor Maria Celeste's 100-plus letters to her father are translated and published for the first time in English, inserted into the narrative in response to events Sobel is reporting in Galileo's life. The letters are sweet and respectful, and show Maria Celeste's dependence on her father for resources as well as her willingness to do for him. She mixed him remedies in the convent's pharmacy, cooked sweets for him and rewrote his manuscripts for him as asked. The two could only visit through a grill at the convent, as Maria Celeste could never leave the grounds, but her letters (his to her did not survive) show a doting, close and mutually rewarding relationship between Galileo and his older daughter.
The book brings to life the daily routines and realities of early 17th century life in Italy, as Sobel makes real what life would be like without clocks, long difficult journeys, onlsaughts of the plague and political intrigues at the Vatican and the local inquisitors'. These tangential explanations, along with the recounting of Galileo's trial in Rome for his DIALOGUE, and his personal and religious sadness over being listed on the church's Index of Prohibited Books, and his daughter's responses and caretaking love of her father, make Galileo a real man, rather than an ancient archetype or a note on a timeline. We see what his questioning intellect cost him and the pleasure and sustenance he derived from his close relationship with his loving and faithful daughter.
The final pages of the book contain such a moving and tender apotheosis of the relationship between Galileo and Suor Maria Celeste. While the book was fabulous, the ending was fulfilling in a wholly unexpected way. I'm grateful for this book, for all I learned from it, and for all I came to understand.
Rating: 
Summary: Misdirected Title; Standard Fare Book
Review: Most of us know the history of Galileo; the tumult surrounding his accusation of heresy when he claimed the Earth revolved around the Sun (a Copernican view). But few know about his family life. He had two illegitimate daughters, and one of them - Maria Celeste - became the apple of her father's eye. She was intelligent, well-spoken, a good God-fearing catholic. She was also a nun in a convent and it was this that drove Galileo's Daughter, the book by Dava Sobel.
Irony is at its best here. While the catholic superpower of the 17th century swings its mighty weight around, Galileo begins challenging many of the church's long-held beliefs (that the Earth is NOT the center of the universe!). Meanwhile, his daughters are ushered into God's holy order of nuns, yet support their father from behind the walls of their convent. Most outspoken among them is Maria Celeste, his eldest. She broods over her father and aids him in any way she can (including writing letters to high-power officials affiliated with Mother Church).
The most striking thing about the history surrounding Galileo, is how involved the church was in every aspect of everyone's lives. Science and religion went hand-in-hand back then; a bad idea.
Why?
Because whenever a scientific discovery was made that in any way went against religious scripture, it was immediately censured or labeled as heretical. Just ask Galileo.
The catholic church has a lot to atone for, in my humble opinion. One would think that some time shortly after Galileo's death the church would rescind its ban on his books and apologize for their error. But no. How long would it take before this happened? Let's see, Galileo died in 1642. In 1892, the university of Pisa awarded Galileo an honorary degree - 250 years after his death. Had the church forgiven him yet?
No.
In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovers that the universe is expanding. Surely the church must've acknowledged their mistake by now!
No way.
Spaceflight, microwaves, computers, and a multitude of other discoveries will take place long before the church forgives Galileo his "sins". Unbelievable.
So Galileo's Daughter was interesting from a historical perspective (thus my three star rating). But from a story perspective, it dragged and was held together only just. The letters from Maria Celeste to her father are scattered throughout the pages. And although it is interesting to hear about the spoiling of wine and the selling of produce from Galileo's land, it became rather burdensome to hear of it time and again (at least for me it became so).
I also don't think that the title of this novel (Galileo's Daughter) is appropriate. His daughter IS in there. But not enough to warrant the title. Oh sure, the ending is excellent and ties in with the title quite well, but all the previous pages held more information on Galileo himself than his daughter - there just wasn't enough historical references available regarding his daughter to make it a novel "based" on her.
Rating: 
Summary: Dava Sobel writes a too-long tale with little drama
Review: Some biographers, through talent and the intelligent use of a pen, can make their subject's life a fascinating and interesting tale. Unfortunately, Sobel does not have that talent, and it shows. She writes an extremely long, indifferent encyclopedia article that does little to stimulate the mind or stir the soul, spending too much time weaving intricate, useless details into the story. For example, Sobel spends almost an entire page detailing Suor Maria Celeste's (Galileo's Daughter) handwriting, and throws a new, irrelevant name into every paragraph while doing little to personalize the relevant names. Sobel takes the fascination and excitement in Galileo's tale and presents it in the most boring, mattter-of-fact way possible. I was forced to read this excrutiatingly dull biography for my English 102 class; otherwise, I would not have finished it. All I really have to say is: I'm sorry Ms. Sobel, because your tale didn't turn out as well as you probably wanted it to, and I'm sorry Galileo, that your life has been manipulated into such a sorry novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling start, halting finish
Review: The first half of Dava Sobel's "Galileo's Daughter" is, in a word, gripping. Especially enticing to people interested in history, literature, and science, the first half of this book is a slice of life, albeit an extraordinary one. It also is a lesson in culture/religion (inseparable in the Catholic Church of the time), and its battle with burgeoning scientific knowledge. The contradiction in this book is that at the moment when Galileo's life should become the most interesting, the book loses momentum. The backbone of the memoir, the letters of Galileo's daughter (a cloistered nun), revealed little to me beyond the narrow scope of the more mundane aspects of life. Finances, illness, poverty. Perhaps this is what interests some readers; I will admit it was eye-opening to learn about the way life was lived in the 17th century. In anticipating this book, I was looking for more insight into Galileo beyond the history books. What I got, for example, was a painstaking explanation of how to deal with wine left to spoil in a cask.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking account - historical, lyrical and insightful
Review: This is one of my top ten books. So many insights of his life, and of life in the Renaissance, are illuminated. The injustices of the inquisition are apparent as we learn how devout Galileo was, his deep sense of spirituality and connection to God, and how his desire to explore the questions of the universe were misunderstood by the church. Extremely well written, excellent translation of the original letters written by Galileo's daughter to her father, with insets of explanations and historical references to keep the reader in perspective. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Galileo's Daughter
Review: While there are many things to recommend this book, I found it less interesting to read than I had hoped, and hence, have given it only three stars. My dissatisfaction derives from the fact that this book relies for its substance on the surviving letters of Suor Maria Celeste, Galileo's cloistered daughter. This means that Sobel's book can't concentrate either on the fascinating life of Galileo or the life of the cloistered nun in Italy in the seventeenth century, but rather attempts to recreate the relationship of a father and his daughter through her fawning letters. In fairness, Suor Maria Celeste does seem like a remarkable woman. Her writing style, while cloying, is impressive. Her life was one of incredible privation, and she was amazingly devoted both to her father and to her Saviour. That being said, there is precious little addition insight to be gained from reading the book itself. Suor Maria Celeste's endless exhortations of recourse to faith in God while the Catholic Church, the instrument of God's work on earth attempts to silence her father from saying that the Earth orbits the Sun, seems inexplicable. I wondered if persons of faith, particularly Catholics, might be moved by this attitude, but for us non-believers, the endless upbeat faith in God's goodness in the face of privation and injustice perpetrated in the name of that same God seemed both maddening and mystifying. In short, I came away from this book with no sense of what moved Galileo's daughter. Yes, she clearly loved God and loved her father, but the reader suspected that at the outset. I found little of substance in the book to aid the understanding of the reader for the man, his daughter, their age or their church.
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