On Friday, April 9th at 7.30pm, I will be giving an online talk with the above title for the Ely Astronomy Club. It will be literary and cultural rather than heavily scientific in nature, around 40 minutes in length and completely free, so do join if at all inclined via the zoom link on the Club's site https://sites.google.com/site/elyastroclub/home.
In response to several requests for a reading list I am happy to provide the following. I doubt I will refer to all of this directly in the talk and have therefore appropriately starred the most important items.
Fiction
Peter Ackroyd - First Light *
Isaac Asimov - "Nightfall"*
Arthur C. Clarke - "The Star" *
Thomas Hardy - Far from the Madding Crowd
Two on a Tower*
Robert Heinlein - Double Star
Stanislaw Lem - Fiasco
Solaris
The Star Diaries*
H. P. Lovecraft - "The Call of Cthulhu"*
Film
Ad Astra (dir. James Gray (2019))
Alien (dir. Ridley Scott (1979))
The Black Hole (dir. Gary Nelson (1979))
Interstellar (dir. Christopher Nolan (2014))*
A Quiet Place (dir. John Krasinski (2018)) *
Star Cops ( UK TV Series, created Chris Boucher (1987))
Music
David Bowie - "Starman"
Olivier Messiaen - Des Canyons aux Etoiles...*
Non-Fiction
Galileo Galilei - Notebooks
Jo Marchant - The Human Cosmos *
Blaise Pascal - Pensées *
Dava Sobel - Galileo's Daughter
Vincent van Gogh - Letters *
I will also be referring to Van Gogh's late nightscapes - Café Terrace at Night (1888), Starry Night Over the Rhone (1889)*, Starry Night (1889)* and Road with Cypress and Star (1890).
Poetry
Robert Frost - "Choose Something Like a Star" *
Thomas Hardy - "Drummer Hodge" *
John Keats - "Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art" *
John Milton - Paradise Lost *
Charles Olson - "Ode on Nativity"
Dylan Thomas - ""Do Not Go Gentle Into that Goodnight"
I think that's quite enough. Do please join the meeting on April 9th. The Astronomy Club is a very friendly and unintimidating - though highly informed - group and you will be made most welcome in the Zoom Room.
