This is one of those books that’s been on my shelf for a while. I know this as I’m told we bought it in Boston in 2013. That’s only three and a half years but it was well worth the wait. Dava Sobel is the bomb of creative non-fiction. I’m going to paraphrase the quote from the front cover ‘The Planets lets us fall in love with Dava Sobel’s writing all over again’.
What is so right about it?
Almost everything. Sobel starts by talking about her planet fetish which began in the third grade. She makes the planets easy to understand by comparing them to a family of siblings and mentions her brothers in high school. So, in the first paragraph I’m absolutely hooked.
Later on comes the chapter on Mars. She talks about Mars from the point of view of a rock that had been sheered off Mars and fallen to Earth. Essentially she’s taken all my Mondayitis articles and thrown them into the depths of the fires of Mordor by creating her own absolutely perfect chapter. Just with this chapter alone she’s using all my lessons on Creative Non-fiction that I’m studying right now at uni and putting them all into practice. The only difference is she does it perfectly.
Later on she takes on the challenge of teaching us about Uranus and Neptune by writing a letter from Caroline Herschel to Miss Mitchell. It’s the sort of letter designed to encourage any female in a masculine domain while entertaining the reader.
What don’t I like about it?
There are typos. Only a couple of them but they grate on my nerves and I’m not ignoring them any longer. I’ve heard Stephen King has a couple of typos in his new books and I’m not happy with this, it is not progress, it is degeneration. I’m making a stand. And of course, the moment I make a stand on this topic someone finds a typo in my work. It’s karma.
Do I recommend it?
Of course. I recommend anything by Sobel. She’s the master of this genre and I bow down at her feet. Here’s a link so you can buy your copy. It’s cheaper than travelling to Boston but not as much fun. And when you buy I get a handful of cents bringing me closer to my $10 goal.