This book is classified Biography/Science, not a classification in bookcrossing. It caught my eye while was Christmas shopping. Then I decided that its condition was not quite pristine enough to give as a gift. Ten years ago, when AGE OF WONDER was in its heyday, I was constantly putting out fires and over-stressed. I missed it. So now the book is a gift for me and for bookcrossing. I look forward to reading it. Holmes' approach to the 19th Century looks very interesting.


Amazon Editorial Review

The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science.

When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still.

Ten years is a long time. Yes, I longed to read this book when I registered it here but decided it would take too long to fit into my schedule. So, I'm leaving this book for you, its next reader. I am adding the option of bookcrossing. If you'd like to join the bookcrossing story of this book, please make a journal entry at our site with the BCID (bookcrossing ID) on the bookplate. Bookcrossing is free to join and confidential. Tell us anything you'd like to share about this book.

When I stopped by the Dancing Goats Little Free Library today, I was happy to see that this book had been claimed. It's with a potential new reader, now traveling in the BookCrossing wild.