The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution by Deborah E. Harkness
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I can’t believe that I am almost finished with this book. And though I am not a fan of textbooks or history, I have enjoyed this one. This is the proof of the research Professor Deborah E. Harkness has immersed herself in. Kate Reading’s narration was fantastic. Sometimes, my mind wandered, but her voice and the energy she put into the reading brought me back and intrigued me.
I have always loved science and understand it as an evolving study. But how did anyone believe Newton, Galileo, and their contemporaries? How did we get to the point of believing in gravity and the planets around us? X-rays? Vaccines that have obliterated smallpox or polio? The beginnings of science came with alchemy, witchcraft, and people who understood herbs and gardening. If we think there is a lot of conspiracy now, consider how the idea of a falling apple becomes a fact.
This book shows how the idea machine helped and hindered our science heroes and villains. I found it freeing to think that if we listen to everyone and do our research, even the lowest of people, a child? can lead us to a new understanding.
Still, I can’t wait to see the 5th book of All Souls. I miss the characters and the time travel. I feel I learn so much better when a story is involved. I wish I had taken notes and read the book in my own textbook with a highlighter pen. I may have to reread it with those thoughts in mind.
Darswords 
Well, you still can go back and do that! Reread it I mean and take your notes.
I surprised myself the other day when I thought of a way to open my next article, and made sure to put it in my notes app right then and there!
It’s a long read and my list of TBR books is long with library reads between. But I do plan on it. I still had a little over an hour to read after I wrote the review and with the author’s postscript. Now I am when more enthusiastic to do the reread with copious notes! I love the depth of information I get when I give it the college try. Tough reads become so clear.🤗