I received a letter from an astronomer in my email box today

[Jean in Wisc]

I wrote a review about the book, Simple Stargazing (http://shadesofwhite.typepad.com/shades_of_white/2008/01/simple-starga-1.html), on my blog, and today I received a nice email from the author, Anton Vamplew, thanking me for my review! He said if I had any astronomy questions that I should write him and ask!

Apparently he was trying to recall who published the Spanish version of his book, so he Googled it on the internet rather than running 2 stories down to the bookcase, and stumbled across my blog.

:D

[HS mom]

That's so neat!

[Cadam]

How cool! I have found it very useful to be able to get in touch with a couple authors of books I use (Thanks SWB and Drew!). Astronomer at your finger tips - nice!

[CookieMonster]

That's awesome!

I bet it made him feel good, too!

[Lorna]

That is awesome! I am sure he will revisiting your blog too. It is a little twinkle of light in a gloomy World Wide Web.

[Unicorn]

That's so cool! How wonderful for both of you. He gets a great review, and you get questions answered from the source. Nice, very nice!

[3lilreds in NC]

That's really neat, Jean! How fun for you, and for him!

[Josie]

I am sure you made him smile.

[Elisabeth in IL]

Jean, I just read your review. Do you think that his book would be good for a beginner like me who knows nothing about the night sky? We even have a hard time seeing stars because there is so much light pollution in this area so.

[Jean in Wisc]

Jean, I just read your review. Do you think that his book would be good for a beginner like me who knows nothing about the night sky? We even have a hard time seeing stars because there is so much light pollution in this area so.

The author of this book has spent a lot of time trying to get the general public interested in astronomy, and I think he does a wonderful job of introducing the subject. There are many books that I have read that have helped me learn the night sky, but this is a nice foundation with information about how to go about finding things in the sky as well as a general overview of astronomy to spark the beginner's interest.

Whether this book is the right book for you would depend upon what you want to learn. If you simply want to go outside and find a few constellations and begin to locate a few night sky objects, there are other materials that would help you better, such as Sky and Telescopes Skywatch '08 and a good planisphere. However, if you want to read about the night sky, learn the basics that will help you understand the beginning concepts of astronomy, look at the star maps and read about the constellations, this a wonderful place to start.

If you have no other book about astronomy, this would not be a bad book to start your journey.

[Stacia]

How very neat!

You should copy your review from your blog over to amazon. I just looked on amazon (to see if I could see some of the inside of the book) & noticed the book has not been reviewed by anyone yet.