April/May 2007 Galileo's Daughter. A memoir of Science, Faith and Love by Dava Sobel. One member of our group remarked that he thought this was the best book we had read in the book club to date. I really enjoyed the book. I felt like it gave a lot more detail than previous accounts I had read about Galileo, which were generally a few pages in a broader history book. This book, better than most books that cover Galileo's run-in with the Holy Office of the Inquisition, put the conflict in the perspective of Galileo's disagreement with some individuals, including Pope Urban VIII. The book points out that it was not a conflict between Science and Religion, but between Galileo and some influential churchmen. The fact that these 17th Century churchmen required more proof that the earth orbits the sun made me wonder just how I would go about proving that premise in the 21st Century. In our age, with 350 or so years of 20/20 hindsight and the benefit of Isaac Newton, we take such things or granted. The other thing I liked about this book was it showed, through the letters of his daughter, that Galileo was a devout Catholic...albiet with three children out of wedlock. Other than that aspect, I did not think the daughter's letters added much to the story. Back to reading list