Penny Haw has been writing biographies about Women in Science for the past few years, and I love them. These are great reads on a topic close to my heart. She is rewriting “hidden history” one incredible scientist at a time…
Easy reading, thoroughly enjoyable stories and altogether great…
Penny Haw has written a series of brilliant biographies about women in science. I love a good biography, and science… this has just been a fabulous series for me.
The series so far:
- The Invincible Miss Cust: This is the true story of Miss Cust, who gave up everything, including her name, to go and get her veterinarian degree at Edinburgh University (an English University would not have her).
- The Woman at the Wheel: The Woman at the Wheel, is the wild story of Bertha Benz, who was such a disappointment to her parents, because “she was only a girl” and went on to pioneer the invention of the horseless carriage.
- Follow me to the Africa: This book is about the archaeologist, Mary Leakey, who under the shadow of her much more famous husband, developed into a world renowned archaeologist in her own right, despite her non-academic education.
- The Woman and her Stars:
The story of the Caroline Herschell, the astronomer.
Meet the Author, Penny Haw
The Woman and Her Stars
Oh my word, she has done it again. Penny Haw writes the most amazing biographies about women in science. She is slowly but surely writing the hidden history of women in science, one book at a time. You can meet the author, Penny Haw, at her interview here. The Woman and her Stars is the story of Caroline Herschel, an astronomer, who grew up under the shadow of her older brother’s role of “King’s Astronomer” to King George III. William had rescued Caroline from a life of servitude to her mother, who believed that because of her scarring and short stature, due to illness as a young child, that she would never amount to anything. William saw what a hard worker she was and employed her as his personal note taker, and while sweeping the sky with her own telescope while he was away at court… Caroline started to discover the night sky as no-one else had before her. With all her discoveries and precise detailing, suddenly there were comets with her name on them… she was in fact, unbeknownst to her, a leading astronomer of the day. This is her story, and Penny Haw tells it well.
These books were published by Penguin Random House, South Africa. I bought my copy of the Woman and the Stars at Liberty Books in Elgin.