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Reviews
The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily Levesque
canadianbookworm's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
https://cdnbookworm.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-last-stargazers.html
joannema7's review
5.0
Fun, easy to follow book about this field. Might really appeal to teens and young adults trying to decide if they want to become astronomers.
Enjoyable for adults, too!
Enjoyable for adults, too!
jeffrey_e's review against another edition
It was good, truly. Fun stories, I learned a TON. I just don’t think it was for me. I found that the author repeated things a bit too much for my liking and it got repetitive.
falfy's review
4.0
I loved this book! There were some aspects that I didn't completely understand, but I think the author did her best explaining the very complex subject of astronomy. This as a fun and interesting read. Hearing stories of astronomers staying up all night listening to music and eating snacks was fun to read about and gave me a glimpse of a world where I'll probably never step foot, but love to learn about.
saralynnburnett's review
5.0
This book was fantastic. I read 99% of it in a day/night because I couldn't put it down and then I was so sad that I only had ten pages left I stretched it out over three days. This was a funny and poignant look at what it's like to be an astronomer—specifically one who works with the world's largest telescopes in the world's most remote locations. Mountain tops, near volcanoes, in Antarctica, and as my favorite chapter described, on an airplane. There are stories in here about a telescope being shot (the one in Texas, of course), wild bears, and condors. Plus, you'll learn some hard science too and I finally have a grasp on what dark matter is and why it matters (pun intended). I can't recommend this novel enough - these scientists are true heroes and the people we should be putting on pedestals instead of reality TV stars!
bobdudley's review
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
3.0
I am not sure what I expected of this book; possibly a book like Hope Jahren's Lab Girl. This book is definitely not it. Lab Girl had its faults; however, there was an overall theme to the book which was continued in the Story of More, which was a better book than Lab Girl.
Being a retired scientist with a number of publications in peer reviewed books, I can safely say scientist are not the most articulate writers of science for the general public. W.O. Wilson, in my opinion, is the gold standard. Stephen Jay Gould was a wonderful essayist; however his books were pretty bad.
Dr Levesque does not have a clear theme in her book which is disappointing She does talk about the absence of women and people of colour in physics; however that is a real problem in all of the sciences. She really only briefly discusses her story and gives pretty short shrift of other peoples stories. There have been better retelling of these problems in books like Hidden Numbers and The Glass Universe.
Dr Levevesque's research is interesting; but again, we learn very little about it especially why she was using all the various telescopes and other instruments in her research. I am especially interested in what is happening when a star dies, especially a red giant star. Instead we get a list of cool instruments that she used and why she was using then; however, we get little sense of how they relate to her particular thesis project. Her was a teachable moment about what science does (It tries to make sense of the physical world around us) and how it goes about doing it (the so called scientific method).
Despite its deficiencies (in my eyes) I think that I may not be the target audience and so I am not going to give it a thumbs down. I think that you should read it for yourselves and make your own decision. I know that a number of young women have been inspired by this book and that is not a bad thing. I maybe too critical of this book and I hope that she matures more as a writer. I am looking forward to any future books that she may write.
Being a retired scientist with a number of publications in peer reviewed books, I can safely say scientist are not the most articulate writers of science for the general public. W.O. Wilson, in my opinion, is the gold standard. Stephen Jay Gould was a wonderful essayist; however his books were pretty bad.
Dr Levesque does not have a clear theme in her book which is disappointing She does talk about the absence of women and people of colour in physics; however that is a real problem in all of the sciences. She really only briefly discusses her story and gives pretty short shrift of other peoples stories. There have been better retelling of these problems in books like Hidden Numbers and The Glass Universe.
Dr Levevesque's research is interesting; but again, we learn very little about it especially why she was using all the various telescopes and other instruments in her research. I am especially interested in what is happening when a star dies, especially a red giant star. Instead we get a list of cool instruments that she used and why she was using then; however, we get little sense of how they relate to her particular thesis project. Her was a teachable moment about what science does (It tries to make sense of the physical world around us) and how it goes about doing it (the so called scientific method).
Despite its deficiencies (in my eyes) I think that I may not be the target audience and so I am not going to give it a thumbs down. I think that you should read it for yourselves and make your own decision. I know that a number of young women have been inspired by this book and that is not a bad thing. I maybe too critical of this book and I hope that she matures more as a writer. I am looking forward to any future books that she may write.