I'm having a bad day and to forget my misery, I turn to reading. I went to the public library and borrowed two books. One is an illustrated copy of Stephen Hawking's, 'On the shoulders of Giants' which I promptly finished by nibbling on the biographies of the giants of science and Astronomy - Nicolas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. I totally skipped reading the excerpts of their works because, frankly, I'm not up to those lengthy, scholarly stuff. Besides, the reason I picked the book was to read about Stephen Hawking's take on these great men, seeing as he is considered their equal by the contemporary scientific world. I wasn't disappointed. Hawking's insights on the work physicists and scientists do tempered any criticism he may have had for the their frailties. For all their brilliance and amazing scholarship, these men had their own personality quirks, disappointments, trials and triumphs. Kind the makes them accessible to ordinary people like you and me. The other book is, 'Astronomy through the Ages' by one Robert Wilson. I'm just starting on this one. Says on the preface that the author will explain the history of Astronomy, here I paraphrase, without making my head ache. Sounds fairly inviting to me. From Chapter 1 aptly titled, The Beginning was this sentence explaining humanity's origin in connection with the universe: "We are children of the stars". Hmmm ... profound in a way considering my current state of mind. More on this next time ...