21. A book related to Maximilian Hell, the noted astronomer and Jesuit Priest who was born in 1720

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

I will read some kind of space sci-fi book. I know I have several, including classics by Isaac Asimov and some from the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold

[Emily]

I read Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up and it relates because it's got the word hell in the title.

[Jette]

I read The Sun Is Also a Star for this challenge. Aside from the title references, there are discussions about the stars, dark matter, physics, and astronomy.

[Stephanie]

1. What are you reading for this category? Caliban's War
2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? It is set in space and an alien protomolecule has overrun Venus.

[Robin P, Orbicular Mod]

Nanette wrote: "I ended up reading two books about growing up in Hungary in the early 1900s. The Good Master and The Singing Tree. I read these in elementary school and now am struck by..."

I remember those!

[Sherri]

I read The Last Mrs. Rothschild by Sara Aharoni, Yardeen Greenspan (Translator). It was set in 1770-1849 in Frankfurt Germany. It spoke of the politics during this time & rulers. I may be stretching here but it had a lot to do with religion. Also I figure this book is as close as I’ll get to filling this prompt.

[Shelley]

I accidentally had the perfect book for this. My book club read Contact this month. It's all about receiving contact from alien life and making the technology to visit them. There's an extremely strong religious component to it as the characters grapple with just what it means to not be alone in the universe. I called it preachy in my book club meeting, but it's not even that. Sagaan just hits you over the head with dozen page long theological debates.

[Laurel]

1. What are you reading for this category? I read The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? It is a history of the Harvard Observatory, with an emphasis on the women astronomers and computers who worked there. The focus of the observatory was on stars, but they also cover the transit of Venus and other planets.

[Pamela, Arciform Mod]

1. What are you reading for this category? The Map of Salt and Stars
2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? Because of the title, map of stars

[Chelsey]

I read . It has an astronomy term in the title and much of the poetry related to astronomy.

[Kylie]

Listopia has Cinder by Marissa Meyer I night use this as I’m using it for another challenge as well

[Samantha]

1. What are you reading for this category? Illuminae
2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? It is set in outer space

[Ashley]

I read Gulliver's Travels, which was published in the 1700s.

[Suzanne]

1. What are you reading for this category?
The Moon: A History for the Future by Oliver Morton

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
He was interested in space and this book is about the study of the moon and space.

[Alexx]

1. What are you reading for this category?
I am reading Artemis by Andy Weir

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
It is set in outer space, on the only city on the moon called Artemis. I believe that there is also a crater on the moon called Hell after Maximilian Hell

[Alesha]

1. What are you reading for this category?
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
This book takes place entirely in space, with our main character on a journey to establish a second home for humanity on a new planet.

4 stars. I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would! It made for a thrilling and quick sci-fi read.

[SadieReadsAgain]

What are you reading for this category? I was meant to read Everything You Know by Zoë Heller, but I must have unhauled it. So I decided to go with Night by Elie Wiesel
How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? What is closer to hell than than the Holocaust?

How can I put into words the impact that this book has? In today's climate, where fascism looms darkly on our close horizons, this book is just as important as it was when published...probably more so, as with the passing of time has come complacency. I had to keep putting this book down to take a breath at the sheer horror that this isn't fiction. I'm no stranger to WWII writing. I read Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, and her would-have-been step-sister's Eva's Story: A Survivor's Tale by the Step-Sister of Anne Frank when I was a young teenager, as well as many fictional takes on that time. But this...this is the definitive account of the experience of a victim of the Holocaust and the experience of Auschwitz. Eva's Story had prepared me well, I've never forgotten her account. But Wiesel doesn't simply recount his experiences (though he does do that, to gut-wrenching results), he makes such powerful statements about those who oppress, and the human nature of trying to survive the unsurviveable (I don't even think that's a word, but forgive me because I can't even get my thoughts together here). We cannot afford to forget what was done in the name of supremacy, this is too awful to have happened even once. These stories need to be told, and told, and told. What Wiesel and others alongside him went through is beyond the comprehension of so many of us, comfortable in front of Netflix and seeing voting as a pointless exercise. But we have the power to prevent this happening again, to stop this happening where it still goes on, and to speak out against any form of -ism or oppression whenever we can. Because the alternative, the lived reality of people like Wiesel, is just too *insert any and all synonyms for barbaric* to contemplate. We should think ourselves blessed that someone with Wiesel's gift with words was lucky enough to survive and tell us all his story.

[Joanne]

I was trying to find a book to fit this very specific prompt but everything felt like a stretch, so I ended up rereading on of my favourite books The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell about a Jesuit priest who travels through space to another inhabited planet.

[Marie (UK)]

i read The Thorn Birds about a priest among others this is a re read for me as good today as it was in the 70's

[Jackie, Solstitial Mod]

I went with Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men, which has 'Hell' in the title. It was a pretty good historical true crime for those that enjoy that.

[Kellie Lyn]

Regular: Artemis Andy Weir (set on Mars)

ABC: The Cage of Zeus Sayuri Unea (Set on a station located around Saturn)

This was a very difficult prompt from me. I do not like to read Science Fiction and had no idea who Maximillan Hell was. I am hoping both of these fit the prompt. I had to search high and low to find one that fit (especially the "U" author) and that I could finish. Well, I lucked out because both turned out to be pretty amazing.

The second one was a great find since I teach a course on Gender in America to 11th graders. This book uses the Spivak (a mathmetician) pronouns and it makes for an interesting read. I am going to use exerpts of this book with my students when we start this unit. It will be interesting to analyze how the completely gender neutral pronouns make such a difference in the way the character is viewed. YAY!! (Already have a lesson plan for it) Which will be perfect for our discussion of how gender is viewed in America.

[Virginia]

1. What are you reading for this category?
I read Goldilocks by Laura Lam.

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
Most of the book is set in space; it was inspired by the story of the Mercury 13.

[Angela]

1. What are you reading for this category?
Embers, by Sandor Marai


2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
It’s by a Hungarian author.

[Karen]

1. What are you reading for this category?
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
Well, I have to confess that I'd never heard of Mr. Hell (aka Hell Miksa), but Wikipedia tells me that he published his observations of the 1769 transit of Venus. Cool.

[Joan]

1. What are you reading for this category? Artemis
2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell? It is set on the moon.

I'm really liking this book. The character reminds me a lot of Cinder.

[MN]

I read Jules Verne, Journey to the Centre of the Earth for this topic. Because? Well (and this is perhaps stretching things just a
little ...), because in Dante's Inferno (i.e. Hell), he travels through the centre of the Earth.

The book is wonderful, incidentally; not at all what I expected. I thoroughly enjoyed the science and geology, and was oddly delighted by the narrator's general misgivings about the venture.

[Wendy]

I originally had a different book set in this category, but I've shuffled things around because I'm currently reading Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon and it is absolutely perfect for this category.

Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were British astronomers who were working at the same time as Maximillian Hell. They were sent by the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus in 1760, and after that were sent to America to survey the (infamous) Mason-Dixon line between Maryland and Pennsylvania that bears their name. It's been a pretty crazy read so far, not for the faint of heart.

[Johanna]

I actually ended up using The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell. It fits since they both have the same last name.

[Veronica]

I ended up going with The Sparrow for this one. It is about 4 Jesuit priests who go to outer space in search of another planet. I foundot i teresting and I may check out the sequel, Children of God.

[Tracy]

I read Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli. It wasn't my favorite read: me + physics = a hot mess. But I learned a few things, and checked it off my TBR list.

[Stacey]

I'm reading the gripping and often desperate The Dispossessed by Szilárd Borbély, a narrative tale of poverty in an eastern Hungarian village in the 1970's. It's not an easy book to read due its brutality, animal cruelty, anti-Semitism and the intricate historical and political backstory involving Hungary, Romania and to a lesser extent, Ukraine. Author Borbély was also a poet and literary historian and is considered one of Hungary's most influential literary figures. This narrative is based somewhat on his life. Although the author was not related to Maximillian Hell, the setting is often hell on earth.

Update: this book would have also worked for other 2020 prompts: a two-word title with "The", a book by an author whose name you can't pronounce and a book about a non-traditional family.

[Karen]

Literally nothing about this prompt was enticing to me, so I had trouble finding anything to read. In the end, I went with Night by Elie Wiesel. It's a memoir of his experience in the Holocaust, and surviving Auschwitz, which was basically a hell on earth.

Maybe I stretched the prompt a bit, but I was glad I read this book, even though it was very disturbing.

[Anne]

I have just read Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani. It is related to the topic by the title, and in the book the daughter is a keen amateur astronomer.

[Sarah]

I got The Sparrow from the library but just wasn’t feeling it.
Going with The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It’s on my nightstand and I LOVED A Monster Calls. Doing the audiobook with my class in about 2 weeks.

[Pam]

I'm reading Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy. The story revolves around an astronomical tower and 2 star-crossed lovers, one a young astronomer. Another connection to M. Hell is that the tower was built in 1782, during Hell's lifetime.

[Steven]

I am reading A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay.

It connects to Maximillian Hell because its about an allegory using a journey to stars to discuss different philosophies and religious doctrines, which just screams Jesuit astronomer to me. Bonus points in that it was published in 1920, so keeping with the 20 theme as well.

[star_fire13]

1. What are you reading for this category?
Artemis

2. How is this book related to Maximilian Hell?
This book is set on the moon, and has a lot of mathematics and physics

[Andrea]

This prompt encouraged me to try a new cozy mystery series that I found entertaining, Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell by M.C. Beaton. I selected this book based upon its title and its relationship to the astronomer's name and his planet of interest's namesake.