Books like Copernicus' secret by Jack Repcheck

A biography of Galileo Galilei as seen through the eyes of his daughter, a cloistered nun, and the surviving letters she penned – weaving science, faith, and family in 17th‑century Italy.

"The Planet Factory tells the story of exoplanets, planets orbiting stars outside of our solar system. Discover the specks of dust that circle a young star come together in a violent building project that can form colossal worlds hundreds of times the size of the Earth; the changing orbits of young planets that risk dooming the life forming on neighboring worlds or, alternatively, that can deliver the key ingredients needed to seed its beginnings. Exoplanets are one of the greatest construction schemes in the universe and they occur around nearly every star you see. Each result is an alien landscape, but is it possible that one of these could be like our own home? The Planet Factory discusses the way these planets form, their structure and features, and describes in detail the detection techniques used (there are many) before looking at what we can learn about the surface environments and planetary atmospheres, and whether this hints at the tantalizing possibility of life." --

In June 1792, the erudite and cosmopolitan Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre and the cautious and scrupulous Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain set out from Paris -- one north to Dunkirk, the other south to Barcelona to calculate the length of the meter. In the face of death threats from village revolutionary councils, superstitious peasants, and civil war, they had only their wits and their letters to each other for support. Their findings would be used to create what we now know as the metric system. Despite their painstaking and Herculean efforts, Mechain made a mistake in his calculations that he covered up. The guilty knowledge of his error drove him to the brink of madness, and in the end, he died in an attempt to correct himself. Only then was his mistake discovered. Delambre decided to seal all evidence of the error in a vault at the Paris Observatory. Two hundred year later, historian Ken Alder discovered the truth. With scintillating prose and wry wit, Alder uses these previously overlooked letters, diaries, and journals to bring to life a remarkable time when everything was open to question and the light of reason made every dream seem possible.

Steven Shapin’s study refines the concept of the Scientific Revolution by examining how 17th‑century nature was defined, investigated, and applied, offering a culturally grounded perspective on the era’s science and its broader social impact.