Patrick Moore (1) (1923–2012)

Definitely a book for cat lovers only. In fact, probably only a crazy cat-person will fully appreciate Patrick Moore's strong attachment to his feline companions. Even as a cat owner and ailurophile myself, I found the sentiment rather saccharine and mawkish.

That said, Patrick Moore was a bona fide English eccentric and generally an all-round nice man who was held in genuine affection by his TV audience (including me) and those whose lives he touched more directly as inspiration, mentor and show more benefactor. Having lost his fiancée, who was serving as a nurse in the Second World War, when her ambulance was hit during a Nazi bombing raid, Moore never entered into another romantic relationship. So, if he found comfort, consolation and an outlet for his tender feelings by doting on his cats, I can only be happy that they brought him joy and contentment.

The book, then is rather slight in both content and page count, being a loose collection of personal anecdotes about Moore's last two pets, Jeannie and Ptolomy, padded out to 62 pages with a quantity of "family" cat photographs.

Were it not for the affection in which I hold Mr Moore, I'd probably have given this 2 stars, but 3 it is in memoriam of a national institution and treasure whose like we are unlikely to see again. show less

This is a very personal rating (as they all are, I suppose), as objectively this is probably a 3* book. This book did much to foster my interest in mythology, astronomy and science, so it was a formative read for me. It has great sentimental value and is one of the few books I have retained from early childhood.

What you've got here is a children's book with a very basic retelling of some of the Greek myths that link to the constellations of the northern skies, some nicely painted show more illustrations of the heroes and monsters, and some outlines of the relevant constellations, which make finding them in the night sky easy. At least it did when I was a child, before light pollution dimmed the view.

I don't know if this is still in print, but if it is it would be an excellent gift for a 6-9 year old (going on 50!). show less

Pareidolia in the milky way
Like reading an encyclopaedia, this book, beautifully illustrated, bombards you with facts from start to end, from Earth, to the end of the known universe. I enjoyed the style of writing which felt like chatting, using colloquial terms such as the jewelled handle and the straight wall, for places on the moon. Although 13 years out of date (eg Saturn had 62 confirmed satellites in 2012, now has 146 in 2025), this actually makes the book fun to find out the progress show more of space exploration. I was particularly interested in NASA's DART mission (that was completed in 2024), in the book it is named the European Don Quixote mission. show less

Good practical book, occasionally funny. Simple diagrams and generally clear text. But Figure 9 and its explanation in Chapter 5 were quite beyond me. I suspect that there is an error there.

This book was published in this century, but, probably because the author was quite elderly, has a nice old-fashioned approach. It is not aggressively dumbed down or full of random pop-culture references. It is really rather informative.

Chapter 1: A brief biographical sketch and mention of Apollo 11. From show more space travel being ridiculous, to a landing on the moon. From confidence in near future moon bases to today, when humans go no farther than the ISS.

Chapter 2: Myth, Greek speculations, and Greek math and science, including Eratosthenes and Ptolemy.

Chapter 3: A survey of the solar system. This book was published when Pluto was a planet and it had only one moon.

Chapter 4: Conflicting theories of the moon's origins, the big impact one wins.

Chapter 5: The Movement of the Moon. The moons phases, lunation, change in apparent size, eclipses, libration.

Chapter 6: The Moon and the Earth. Tides, tidally locking, size of moon's orbit increasing, earth's rotational velocity decreasing.

Chapter 7: Observers of the Moon. William Gilbert, Thomas Harriot, Galileo (less interested in charting the moon and more interested in supporting his theories with his lunar observations), later work, photography, lunar orbits. show less