Book Summary and Reviews of The Book of God and Physics by Enrique Joven

The Book of God and Physics by Enrique Joven

The Book of God and Physics

A Novel of the Voynich Mystery

by Enrique Joven

  • Readers' Rating (17):
  • Published:
  • May 2009, 368 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The fathers of astronomy and physics.

The Church that vowed to silence them.

A book no one can read. And the young man at the center, connecting them all.

In his search for truth, a young Jesuit joins a group that has for centuries been trying to decipher the secrets of a mysterious book known as the Voynich Manuscript. This manuscript has developed a global cult following of cryptographers, none of whom has been able to crack its code. Written in an unknown language and illustrated with enigmatic drawings that no one has been able to interpret, the work first surfaced in the court of Rudolf II of Bohemia.

This same Bohemian court also gave refuge to two of the greatest, and most controversial, scientific minds of all time: famed Dane Tycho Brahe and German Johannes Kepler. These two astronomers—together with their contemporaries Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei—were engaged in the most formidable dialogue in the history of science and laid the groundwork for nearly all of contemporary astronomy and physics.

Is there a connection between Voynich and the brilliant scientists who frequented the court? Could the manuscript perhaps be the codified findings of either Brahe or Kepler, written in a special language to conceal their scientific discoveries from the Church and its brutal Inquisition?

When a key to unlocking Voynich is discovered in the church where the young Jesuit teaches, powerful forces conspire to keep the contents of the manuscript from being decoded. It is then up to the young Jesuit to unlock these secrets hidden in plain sight for centuries.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] remarkable debut, while bearing obvious similarities to The Da Vinci Code, is much more than another pale imitation. ... Joven manages to cleverly blend fact and fiction as well as make the scientific debates of the 16th century relevant and compelling." - Publishers Weekly

This information about The Book of God and Physics was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Enrique Joven

Enrique Joven holds a doctorate in physics. Since 1991, he has resided in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where he works as a senior engineer at the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. He writes regularly for various media outlets on subjects ranging from science and new technologies to the Internet.

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