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Nature 448, 649-650 (9 August 2007) | doi:10.1038/448649a; Published online 8 August 2007

Remarkable but not so unusual

Judith P. Zinsser1

BOOK REVIEWEDThe Comet Sweeper: Caroline Herschel's Astronomical Ambition

by Claire Brock

Icon Books: May 2007. 208 pp. £9.99

Dava Sobel and Patricia Fara have proved that there is an audience for popular yet scholarly stories of the adventures of scientists at the beginning of the modern age. Claire Brock's brief study of the astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) intends to please these same readers.