Falling Upwards - Richard Holmes

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Résumé :
A new book from the popular science writer and biographer, charting the history of hot air ballooning. In the 18th and 19th century, the pioneer generation of aviators allowed us to ponder for the first time on weather prediction, observation of the stars from an aerial dimension, and the exploration of remote continents. From the author of The Age Of Wonder. Also published in paperback this month.

Biographie:
Richard Holmes is the author of the prize-winning and best-selling The Age of Wonder, shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2009 and winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science writing. He is the author of many other prize-winning books including Shelley, Coleridge, Dr Johnson & Mr Savage, and the classic work, Footsteps. He lives in Norwich and is married to the novelist Rose Tremain.

'[Holmes] has a rare and infectious capacity for wonderment ... dazzling ... I felt I was flying - with the sensations of hilarity, ecstasy and terror that are rightly provoked by our escape from gravity ... while I was reading Holmes's heady, swoopingly aerodynamic book' Observer '[A] captivating and surely definitive history of the madness of pre-Wright brothers ballooning' Times, Book of the Week 'This is a book in which the delight the author clearly took in researching and writing it carries over to the reader above all what Holmes teases out ... is the very interesting idea that ballooning gave us, quite literally, a different point of view ... a wholly novel experience of sublimity. This exhilarating book, wonderfully written , generously illustrated and beautifully published, captures all that and more', Spectator '[In] this charming, witty and insightful account of windblown ideas and adventures Holmes succeeds neatly in matching his form to his subject' Sunday Telegraph 'It is a tragic tale, punctuated with ghastly accidents, but thanks to Holmes's enthusiasm and eager curiosity it remains valiantly airborne' Sunday Times 'Holmes is truly a masterly storyteller and can make the most digressive material cohere' Evening Standard