Asby Book Club
thu09may20:00Asby Book ClubThe Age of Wonder 20:00 Holly Bank House
Event Details
“The Age of Wonder ” Richard Holmes Lead: Paul Please note change if date. Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books,
Event Details
“The Age of Wonder ”
Richard Holmes
Lead: Paul
Please note change if date.
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Richard Holmes’s dazzling portrait of the age of great scientific discovery is a groundbreaking achievement.
The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook’s first Endeavour voyage, who stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769 fully expecting to have located Paradise. Back in Britain, the same Romantic revolution that had inspired Banks was spurring other great thinkers on to their own voyages of artistic and scientific discovery – astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical – that together made up the ‘age of wonder’.
In this breathtaking group biography, Richard Holmes tells the stories of the period’s celebrated innovators and their great scientific discoveries: from telescopic sight to the miner’s lamp, and from the first balloon flight to African exploration.
All welcome – no fees – just come along to listen even if you have not read the book.
Time
(Thursday) 20:00
Location
Holly Bank House