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A review by bobdudley
The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily Levesque
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.