How to Use Reading to Become a Better Writer

“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” – Victor Hugo

There are two ways to become a better writer, in general: write a lot, and read a lot.

There are no other steps.

Of course, within those two general directives, there are lots of more specific advice I can give you, and that other professional writers would offer. Let’s take a look at the second general directive: read a lot.

Why Reading Makes You a Better Writer
I’ve been an avid reader since childhood, and I would submit that most good (and especially great) writers could say the same. What we probably didn’t realize was that our trips into the fantasy worlds of these books were actually training us for our future careers. I’m glad I didn’t know — it might have taken a bit of the joy out of it.

Read can be pure joy, if you’re reading a good book. By that, I don’t mean good literature — I mean anything that captures your imagination, that compels you to read more, that tells you a good story, that creates wonderful characters, that builds new worlds.

But beyond reading for pleasure, a good writer also reads with an eye for the writing. Maybe not all the time, but at least some of the time. And many times that writer doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

What we learn as readers, we use as writers. Maybe we don’t always do the best job at putting that knowledge to use, but that just takes practice. Over time, our writing becomes in some ways a compilation of all the things we’ve learned as readers, blended together in our own unique recipe.

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” – Groucho Marx

How to Use Reading to Improve Your Writing
There’s no one way, of course. Every writer reads his own stuff, and puts that stuff to use in his own way. Below are just some tips of what’s worked for me — take what you like from it, and use what you find useful.

1. Create the reading habit. It can’t be a matter of just reading a book and then forgetting about reading after the initial burst of enthusiasm for reading. It has to be a habit, that you create and keep for life. As someone who has learned a lot about creating habits, I know that the best way to form the habit of reading is to focus on it exclusively — don’t try to form any other habits during this time. Write down your goal (i.e. “Read for 30 minutes every day” or something like that) and post it up somewhere you can see it. Tell a lot of people about it and report to them regularly to create accountability. Log your progress daily and give yourself rewards. Do this for a month and you’ll have a decent habit in place.
2. Have regular reading triggers. A habit has a trigger — a regularly occurring event that immediately precedes the habit. The stronger the association with the trigger, the stronger the habit. What triggers will you have for reading? For me, it’s eating, going to bed, using the bathroom, and waiting somewhere (like in a doctor’s waiting room). Every time those triggers come up, I read, without fail. Choose your triggers, and do it without fail. If you take my triggers as an example, if I read just 10-15 minutes for each trigger, that’s 6 times a day (three times eating and once for each of the others) for a total of 60-90 minutes a day. Sometimes it’s more, but that’s the minimum (I often read for much longer before bed).
3. Carry your book with you. When you go on the road, always carry your book in the car or wherever you go. You might not need it for 9 trips, but the 10th time, you’ll be glad you brought the book. When you have a lull, whip out the book.
4. Read great writers. By “great writers” I mean not only the greats (Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Cervantes, Joyce, and Fitzgerald are some of my favorites here) but also the great storytellers. People who can write with wit, create great characters, reach into your soul, create new worlds for you to inhabit. Writers who can teach you something.
5. Get inspired. When I read great writing, I am filled with inspiration to write. Sometimes I throw down my book and go to my computer to start hacking away at the keyboard. Other times I’ll jot down stuff in my notebook for later. Use these writers to inspire you to greatness.
6. Analyze character, plot, theme. Break down the books you read. You can either do this as you read, or afterward, when you reflect on them while doing something else (for me it’s running and doing housework and when I’m in the shower). Why did the writer make the choices she made? How did she create the characters and convey their qualities? How did she start the book and lay out the plot? How is the theme of the book conveyed throughout the book.
7. Pay attention to what they do with words. Beyond the big things mentioned above, the writer does little things with words, in every paragraph and sentence and phrase. A good writer pays close attention to words, the effects they create, how they mix together with other words, twists and turns of meaning. See how he does this, as it is the best instruction you can get.
8. Rip them off. A writing teacher once told me not to mimmic other writers — but instead to rip them off. Steal blatantly. Take things that you discover in other writers, things that work, things that you love … and use them in your own writing. Don’t worry — you can always revise later or throw it out completely. For now, rip them off. It’ll help you make these techniques your own.
9. Riff off them, experiment. Once you’ve ripped off a few dozen writers, start to riff. Do variations and experiments on stuff you’ve found. Give their techniques and styles your own twists and flair.
10. Expand beyond your normal genres. If you normally read one or two genres, break out beyond it. If you only read sci-fi and fantasy, read more mainstream literature, read romance or thrillers, read “chick lit” (a term I hate, but oh well). There’s a lot you can learn from writers beyond your normal scope.
11. Above all, enjoy your reading. Reading, of course, is about much more than just learning and analyzing and experimenting. It’s about joy. So don’t let your “reading to become a better writer” interfere with that. If a book bores you to tears, go ahead and put it down for something you enjoy more. If you start to lose track of the story because you’re overanalyzing, just forget about analysis and lose yourself in the book. You’ll still be learning, so fear not. If you read for pleasure, you won’t be able to help it.

“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.” – Woody Allen

On The Gory History of Nursery Rhymes...

Most of our traditional nursery rhymes ought to be packaged with a PG Warning for they are hardly the stuff of dreams... 

These seemingly nonsensical rhymes, designed to amuse children, have a rather sinister message embedded in them - some of whom date from as early as the times of the Vikings in England, while others record political and religious upheavals or are merely waxing lyrical over daily occurrences, scandals and gossip.

The Dark Side of Nursery Rhymes

Many nursery rhymes appear in books attributed to the fictional Mother Goose, who was first mentioned in a fairy tale book published by Charles Perrault in 1695 (Credit: Corbis)

By Clemency Burton-Hill

11 June 2015

Plague, medieval taxes, religious persecution, prostitution: these are not exactly the topics that you expect to be immersed in as a new parent. But probably right at this moment, mothers of small children around the world are mindlessly singing along to seemingly innocuous nursery rhymes that, if you dig a little deeper, reveal shockingly sinister backstories. Babies falling from trees? Heads being chopped off in central London? Animals being cooked alive? Since when were these topics deemed appropriate to peddle to toddlers?

Since the 14th Century, actually. That’s when the earliest nursery rhymes seem to date from, although the ‘golden age’ came later, in the 18th Century, when the canon of classics that we still hear today emerged and flourished. The first nursery rhyme collection to be printed was Tommy Thumb's Song Book, around 1744; a century later Edward Rimbault published a nursery rhymes collection, which was the first one printed to include notated music –although a minor-key version of Three Blind Mice can be found in Thomas Ravenscroft's folk-song compilation Deuteromelia, dating from 1609.

The roots probably go back even further. There is no human culture that has not invented some form of rhyming ditties for its children. The distinctive sing-song metre, tonality and rhythm that characterises ‘motherese’ has a proven evolutionary value and is reflected in the very nature of nursery rhymes. According to child development experts Sue Palmer and Ros Bayley, nursery rhymes with music significantly aid a child's mental development and spatial reasoning. Seth Lerer, dean of arts and humanities at the University California – San Diego, has also emphasised the ability of nursery rhymes to foster emotional connections and cultivate language. “It is a way of completing the world through rhyme,” he said in an interview on the website of NBC’s Today show last year. “When we sing [them], we're participating in something that bonds parent and child.”

So when modern parents expose their kids to vintage nursery rhymes they’re engaging with a centuries-old tradition that, on the surface at least, is not only harmless, but potentially beneficial. But what about those twisted lyrics and dark back stories? To unpick the meanings behind the rhymes is to be thrust into a world not of sweet princesses and cute animals but of messy clerical politics, religious violence, sex, illness, murder, spies, traitors and the supernatural. A random sample of 10 popular nursery rhymes shows this.

The stuff of nightmares

Baa baa black sheep,


Have you any wool?


Yes sir, yes sir,


Three bags full.


One for the Master, 


One for the Dame,


And one for the little boy


Who lives down the lane.



Baa Baa Black Sheep is about the medieval wool tax, imposed in the 13th Century by King Edward I. Under the new rules, a third of the cost of a sack of wool went to him, another went to the church and the last to the farmer. (In the original version, nothing was therefore left for the little shepherd boy who lives down the lane). Black sheep were also considered bad luck because their fleeces, unable to be dyed, were less lucrative for the farmer.

Ring-a-ring a' roses,

A pocket full of posies

Hush! Hush! Hush! Hush!

We're all tumbled down

Ring a Ring o Roses, or Ring Around the Rosie, may be about the 1665 Great Plague of London: the “rosie” being the malodorous rash that developed on the skin of bubonic plague sufferers, the stench of which then needed concealing with a “pocket full of posies”. The bubonic plague killed 15% of Britain’s population, hence “atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down (dead).” 
N.B. Though the rhyme first appeared in print, in Kate Greenaway's Mother Goose, in 1881, the theory goes that the 'ring' of roses is but the ring of sores around the mouth of plague victims, who subsequently sneezed and fell dead.

Hush-a-by baby

On the tree top,

When the wind blows

The cradle will rock.

When the bough breaks,

The cradle will fall,

And down will fall baby

Cradle and all.

N.B. This is the original version printed from Mother Goose's Melody (London, c. 1765)

Rock-a-bye Baby refers to events preceding the Glorious Revolution. The baby in question is supposed to be the son of King James II of England, but was widely believed to be another man’s child, smuggled into the birthing room to ensure a Roman Catholic heir. The rhyme is laced with connotation: the “wind” may be the Protestant forces blowing in from the Netherlands; the doomed “cradle” the royal House of Stuart. The earliest recorded version of the words in print contained the ominous footnote: “This may serve as a warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last”.

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary may be about Bloody Mary, daughter of King Henry VIII and concerns the torture and murder of Protestants. Queen Mary was a staunch Catholic and her “garden” here is an allusion to the graveyards which were filling with Protestant martyrs. The “silver bells” were thumbscrews; while “cockleshells” are believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to male genitals.

Goosey Goosey Gander,

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs

And in my lady's chamber.

There I met an old man

Who wouldn't say his prayers,

So I took him by his left leg

And threw him down the stairs.

Goosey Goosey Gander is another tale of religious persecution but from the other side: it reflects a time when Catholic priests would have to say their forbidden Latin-based prayers in secret – even in the privacy of their own home.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home,

Your house is on fire and your children are gone,

All except one,

And her name is Ann,

And she hid under the baking pan.

Ladybird, Ladybird is also about 16th Century Catholics in Protestant England and the priests who were burnt at the stake for their beliefs.

Lucy Locket lost her pocket,

Kitty Fisher found it;

Not a penny was there in it,

Only ribbon round it.

Lucy Locket is about a famous spat between two legendary 18th Century prostitutes.

Three blind mice, three blind mice

See how they run, see how they run,

They all ran after the farmer's wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a thing in your life

As three blind mice?

The first written variation of Three Blind Mice dates from 1609. The three blind mice were three Protestant loyalists who were accused of plotting against Queen Mary I. The 'farmer's wife' refers to the daughter of King Henry VIII, Queen Mary I aka 'Bloody Mary' - a staunch Catholic famed for her violent persecution of Protestants and for the massive estates she and her husband King Philip of Spain possessed.

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement's.

You owe me five farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin's.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey.

When I grow rich,

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know,

Says the great bell of Bow.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Oranges and Lemons follows a condemned man en route to his execution – “Here comes a chopper / To chop off your head!” – past a slew of famous London churches: St Clemens, St Martins, Old Bailey, Bow, Stepney, and Shoreditch.

Pop Goes The Weasel is an apparently nonsensical rhyme that, upon subsequent inspection, reveals itself to in fact be about poverty, pawnbroking, the minimum wage – and hitting the Eagle Tavern on London’s City Road.

Not safe for children?

In our own sanitised times, the idea of presenting these gritty themes specifically to an infant audience seems bizarre. It outraged the Victorians, too, who founded the British Society for Nursery Rhyme Reform and took great pains to clean up the canon. According to Random House’s Max Minckler, as late as 1941 the Society was condemning 100 of the most common nursery rhymes, including Humpty Dumpty and Three Blind Mice, for “harbouring unsavoury elements”. The long list of sins, he notes, included “referencing poverty, scorning prayer, and ridiculing the blind… It also included: 21 cases of death (notably choking, decapitation, hanging, devouring, shrivelling and squeezing); 12 cases of torment to animals; and 1 case each of consuming human flesh, body snatching, and ‘the desire to have one’s own limb severed’.”

“A lot of children's literature has a very dark origin,” explained Lerer to Today.com. “Nursery rhymes are part of long-standing traditions of parody and a popular political resistance to high culture and royalty.” Indeed, in a time when to caricature royalty or politicians was punishable by death, nursery rhymes proved a potent way to smuggle in coded or thinly veiled messages in the guise of children's entertainment. In largely illiterate societies, the catchy sing-song melodies helped people remember the stories and, crucially, pass them on to the next generation. Whatever else they may be, nursery rhymes are a triumph of the power of oral history. And the children merrily singing them to this day remain oblivious to the meanings contained within.“The innocent tunes do draw attention away from what's going on in the rhyme; for example the drowned cat in Ding dong bell, or the grisly end of the frog and mouse in A frog he would a-wooing go”, music historian Jeremy Barlow, a specialist in early English popular music, tells me. “Some of the shorter rhymes, particularly those with nonsense or repetitive words, attract small children even without the tunes. They like the sound and rhythm of the words; of course the tune enhances that attraction, so that the words and the tune then become inseparable.” He adds, “The result can be more than the sum of the parts.”

on figurative language

What is figurative language?

Whenever you describe something by comparing it with something else, you are using figurative language.

Simile

A simile uses the words �like� or �as� to compare one object or idea with another to suggest they are alike.
Example: busy as a bee

Metaphor

The metaphor states a fact or draws a verbal picture by the use of comparison. A simile would say you are like something; a metaphor is more positive - it says you are something.
Example: You are what you eat.

Personification

A figure of speech in which human characteristics are given to an animal or an object.
Example: My teddy bear gave me a hug.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same initial letter, sound, or group of sounds in a series of words. Alliteration includes tongue twisters.
Example: She sells seashells by the seashore.

Onomatopoeia

The use of a word to describe or imitate a natural sound or the sound made by an object or an action.
Example: snap crackle pop

Hyperbole

An exaggeration that is so dramatic that no one would believe the statement is true. Tall tales are hyperboles.
Example: He was so hungry, he ate that whole cornfield for lunch, stalks and all.

Idioms

According to Webster's Dictionary, an idiom is defined as: peculiar to itself either grammatically (as no, it wasn't me) or in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements.
Example: Monday week for "the Monday a week after next Monday"

Clich�s

A clich� is an expression that has been used so often that it has become trite and sometimes boring.
Example: Many hands make light work.

It's "Helt Texas"

Why do Norwegians use 'texas' to mean 'crazy'?

By Vanessa BarfordBBC News Magazine, Washington DC

• 24 October 2015

Norwegians use the word "texas" as slang to mean crazy, it has emerged. But when did this start happening, and how unusual is it?

To most of the world, Texas is known as a big state in southern America.

But to Norwegians, it is also a word that frequently crops up in everyday conversation - often in the phrase "Der var helt texas!" [That was very completely/totally texas!].

The word is slang for "crazy" or "wild" and is used to refer to a chaotic atmosphere, Texas Monthly first reported.

It became part of the language when Norwegians started watching cowboy movies and reading Western literature, according to Daniel Gusfre Ims, the head of the advisory service at the Language Council of Norway.

"The genre was extremely popular in Norway, and a lot of it featured Texas, so the word became a symbol of something lawless and without control," he says.

Its first usage dates back to 1957, when it appeared in a novel by Vegard Vigerust called The Boy who wanted to buy Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. The author writes "he would make it even more texas in the village?".

Nowadays, the word is widespread all over Norway. It's frequently used in the phrase "helt texas" [completely crazy], which has appeared in Norwegian newspapers 50 times this year, he says.

It's often used negatively, but not always. "It could be a party out of control, a class out of control, or traffic. It could also be used by someone who had sold many products," he says.

Gusfre Ims says this language phenomenon - metonymy, where a thing or concept is called not by its own name, but by another name which is associated with it - is pretty common in Norway, and language generally.

Norwegians also use the term "hawaii football" to describe an "out-of-control" match, he says. The word "klondike", a region in Canada associated with the gold rush, is used to describe economic expansion, and also has a hint of something going out of control.

He also points to terms such as "Armageddon" and "champagne".

"People don't mean the place in the Bible, or the area in France," he says.

Erin McKean, the founder of the online dictionary Wordnik, agrees that words are often adopted into language in this way.

"I'm not surprised Norwegians would use this kind of geography to convey a quality. This is how we make language - emphasing one aspect of the word, or using metaphors," she says.

McKean says there are plenty of examples of the English language using perceived characteristics of people from other places, which is a common occurrence with neighbouring countries.

"Dutch courage is associated with having to drink to be courageous. A Dutch treat [when people pay for their own share of an expense] isn't exactly a treat. We talk about taking French leave, or an Irish goodbye.

"The closest thing to we probably have to 'texas' in America is berserk from the Norse warriors, but that's apparently Icelandic, although disputed," she says. 

They're just a bunch of Grammar Zombies alright...

With thanks to The Literacy Shed:

on the World's most spoken language: Bad English

Europe’s common tongue: bad English

Sebastian Huempfer, an editor for the Free Speech Debate, reviews an EU English – British English dictionary aimed at helping native speakers understand the European Union’s rather weird brand of English better.

Badly spoken English is the most widely spoken language in the world, according to German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. The European Union, home to 24 official and working languages, has embraced this principle. Although most official documents are translated into the various official languages, a modified version of English prevails when it comes to unofficial communication. The only ones who are having trouble joining the conversation are the British. A fog of linguistic innovation lies over the Channel, and the continent is isolated.

An EU English – British English dictionary may help the native speakers reintegrate. In 2013 Jeremy Gardner, senior translator at the European Court of Auditors, released a memo outlining “the most commonly misused English words and expressions in EU publications”. He argued that because the target audience of English-language EU documents are mostly British and Irish EU residents, these documents should be written in such a way as to ensure that a British or Irish English speaker would be able to understand them.

Thus, some of the most idiosyncratically continental European additions to the English language – nouns like “comitology” and “planification” or verbs like “to precise” and “to homogenise” – ought to be avoided altogether. Others, like “delay” (which means “deadline” in Brussels) and “to dispose of” (continental English for “to possess”) should be used in a way that avoids miscommunication. The warning: “Please ensure that you dispose of all the correct documents so that you can make the delay” could otherwise wreak unintended havoc.

Those familiar with how the European Union operates may not be surprised to hear that “actorness” (active participation), “Anglo-Saxon” (English and American), “budget line” (they are not sure what it means) and “sickness insurance” (health insurance) are among the most commonly misused English words and expressions in Brussels. Many of the items on Gardner’s list are in fact Freudian slips that reveal as much as they obscure about how Europe’s civil servants think. In other cases, it is clear which country the neologism comes from; many of them make perfect sense to a French or German speaker.

Gardner’s dictionary is partly tongue-in-cheek and makes for an entertaining read, though much of the humour will get lost in translation. Underneath the surface, however, some serious questions lurk. As the translators of Free Speech Debate will confirm, transferring meaning from one language into another is a tricky business. Humour and emotion, metaphors and rhetorical flourishes tend to be the first to be left behind. Shades of meaning, purposeful ambiguity and double entendres are also easily lost. Thus, it is hard to believe that a European government of so few native speakers and so much linguistic improvisation can run smoothly. And it is not surprising that Europe’s citizens are disenchanted with a political elite that speaks in incomprehensible tongues of its own.

Gardner admits that there are many varieties of English spoken all over the world, from Kingston to Delhi to London and, as of the 21st century, Strasbourg and Brussels. None of these is any more or less correct than the next, and the point of the EU dictionary is not to teach the continentals how to speak proper English, but to help them avoid miscommunication. Who owns the English language has long been a contested question. If Lagos spawns more English-language films than Los Angeles and Brussels produces more English-language memos than London, the obvious answer is that the question misses the point.

What really matters is how all the different English speakers of this world, whatever letters they drop and whatever variety they speak, can communicate efficiently. A greater awareness of the pitfalls of English-to-English translation is surely a good first step, and Gardner’s dictionary therefore an important contribution to bringing together a Union divided by a common language.

Sebastian Huempfer is associate editor of Free Speech Debate.

It's time to brush up on your "Legalese"...

Introduction to Legal English & EU "Legalese"

I. What is Legal English?

...on the distinctive features of Legal English aka "Legalese", i.e. legal vocabulary, and syntax. 

During this introductory chapter, we shall discuss the distinctive features of the Legal English vocabulary, ranging from the consideration of words whose specific, legal terminology is being used in legal contexts, such as 'alimony', 'collusion', 'distraint' or 'indemnity', to the analysis of the so-called 'sub-technical' ones, such as 'action', 'hand', 'proceedings' or 'service' up to and including here 'general' English language ones, such as 'judge', 'theft' or 'witness', or those deriving from other languages, such as French ('fait accompli', 'force majeure' etc.), or Latin ('bona fide', 'prima facie' etc.). 

We shall also discuss a number of specific features characterizing English language syntax and its sentence structure. We will consider here the manner in which lexical repetitions are being used as a reference mechanism, whereby instead of 'it' or 'this', or any other pronoun for that matter, the use of specific words, such as 'the aforesaid' or 'the aforementioned' is being preferred in 'Legalese' speak.

We shall also discuss the matter of long and rather complex sentences, whose multiple levels of subordination are seldom found in general English usage. Moreover, we will consider the frequent use of the passive for the purpose of emphasizing the result of certain actions, rather than their agents and/or agencies.

Even further to that, we will consider another feature - that is yet again seldom found in the everyday use of the English language - concerning the use of the subjunctive; also, we shall analyse the use of conditional sentences with inversion and the particular usage of connectors, such as 'whereas' or 'provided that' as well as the tendency to avoid the negative particle 'not' by replacing it with 'except' or 'unless', or even the omission of the relative pronoun, the appropriate form of the verb 'to be', the use of prepositions which are separated from their complements etc. etc.

To be continued...  

on how a college dropout reordered the heavens and changed our understanding of our place in the Universe forever...

The Rebellious and Revolutionary Life of Galileo, Illustrated

by Maria Popova

In 1564, Galileo Galilei was born into a world with no clocks, telescopes, or microscopes — a world that was believed to be the center of the universe, orbited by the sun and the moon and the stars. By the time he died seventy-seven years later, his ideas had planted the seed for the most significant scientific revolution in human history. In addition to his most notorious astronomical discoveries, which challenged centuries of religious dogma by dethroning Earth as the center of the universe andnearly cost him his life, Galileo alsoinvented modern timekeeping, created the microscope, inspired Shakespeare, and even provided a metaphorical model for understanding how culture evolves.

In I, Galileo (public library), writer and artist Bonnie Christensen — who also gave us the marvelous illustrated story of Nellie Bly — chronicles the life of the great Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, and philosopher, adding to both the finest picture-book biographies of cultural icons and the best children’s books celebrating science.

The story, quite possibly inspired by Ralph Steadman’s superb I, Leonardo, is told as a first-person autobiography narrated by Galileo himself. Christensen’s beautiful illustrations pay homage to the aesthetic sensibility of Galileo’s era, partway between the stained glass of European cathedrals and the artistic style of the Old Masters.

We meet Galileo as a blind old man, sentenced to lifelong house arrest by the Inquisition for his dogma-defying discoveries, then travel with him back in time.

In childhood, his father’s revolutionary theories bridging music and mathematics instilled in the young boy an ethos of challenging convention; at eleven, he was sent to a monastery for his formal education and decided to become a monk, which alarmed his father into sending him to medical school instead; in late adolescence, he dropped out of medical school without a degree.

For the remainder of his adolescence, Galileo was essentially homeschooled and self-taught, conducting various fascinating experiments with his father — such as manipulating the length, tension, and thickness of a string to produce notes of a different pitch.

But his voracious scientific curiosity came at a cost — by twenty-five, Galileo was already quite unpopular for doing away with tradition, from refusing to wear the professorial robes his peers wore to challenging Aristotle’s sacred laws of physics.

Aristotle, the famous ancient Greek philosopher, claimed a heavy object would fall faster than a light objet. I disagreed. To prove my point, I dropped two cannonballs of different weights from the leaning tower. Just as I predicted, they fell at the exact same rate of speed. But the public was not convinced, even in the face of scientific proof. I was not invited to continue teaching at the University of Pisa.

And yet Galileo persevered, continuing to challenge the dogmas of ancient science and religion. His seminal pendulum insight sparked modern timekeeping and his famous telescopic observations, an attraction for Italian royalty, proved that Sun, not the Earth, was what the heavenly bodies orbited.

Aware of how radical and possibly dangerous his discovery was, Galileo remained silent for seven years, during which he inverted the direction of his curiosity and used his lens-making skills to invent the microscope.

When he eventually published his findings, he did indeed incur the wrath of the Inquisition and was locked away in the hills of Arcetri, where he died a blind old man having seen the truth of the universe. His ideas lived on to usher in a whole new era of science and culture, forever changing our relationship to the cosmos and to ourselves.

Complement Christensen’s I, Galileo with the illustrated story of pioneering Persian astronomer and polymath Ibn Sina, then revisit the picture-book biographies of other trailblazing shapers of culture: Jane Goodall, Pablo Neruda,Frida Kahlo, e.e. cummings, and Albert Einstein.