NavList:

Heh. Brief, isn't it?! That qualifies as a book review about as much as me pointing my finger at a bookcase and yelling, "Hey, look. A book!" Please understand: I don't blame the messenger! It's just a minimal review, more of an advertisement than anything else.

This new book "Phenomena" appears to be a well-designed seasonal publishing gimmick. Every bookseller on the internet has it "in stock" one way or another at prices typically in the $45-$75 range. It's a coffee table book that (the seller will assure you) "will make the perfect gift for your smart brother!" ...or niece, or uncle, or sister, or father, or whoever you can't figure out a gift for. And isn't $45-$75 just about what you need to spend on a "perfect gift", too? There are few (if any!) serious reviews of this book, most likely because it's not a serious book in the first place. Apparently, it's a lavish collection of images from an interesting, yet relatively insignificant 18th century celestial atlas, which was itself the perfect gift for that weird uncle in the family almost three centuries ago. And the author of the new book, "Phenomena", has added some essays on topics in astronomy to accompany each plate. The original atlas was written mostly in Latin which has become fetishized in recent years as a mystical language, a language of the occult, an incomprehensible dialect of magic spells... 

The plates of the original "Celestial Atlas" are fun to explore despite representing an antique view of astronomy (and some astrology, too). But you don't need to buy the coffee table book to see the plates. One very fine old website has a nice collection of scans that you can peruse at leisure. And that website was apparently assembled by Robert H. van Gent, a NavList member of long-standing, who is also an expert on many topics in time-keeping, astronomy, etc. See the gallery of plates from the "Celestial Atlas" of 1742 here: https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/doppelmayr/doppelmayr.htm. Be aware that this is an "old" website. It uses frames, and it will not display properly on small screens. View it in a desktop browser.

Frank Reed
PS: You can sample 23 years of R.H. van Gent's many NavList posts in this index: http://fer3.com/arc/sort2.aspx?author=gent&y=1999&y2=2025. Note that before 2006, these posts are from the old "navigation list" which was strictly a mailing list. The modern NavList is a "list" in name only.