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Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life
In the grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer, acclaimed author Richard Cohen takes us around the world to illuminate our relationship with the star that gives us life. Drawing on more than seven years of research, he reports from locations in eighteen different countries. As he soon discovers, the Sun is present everywhere—in mythology, language, religion, politics, sciences, art, literature, and medicine, even in the ocean’s depths. For some ancient worshippers, our star was a man abandoned by his spouse because his brightness made her weary. The early Christians appropriated the Sun’s imagery, with the cross becoming an emblem of the star and its rays, and the halo a variation of that. Einstein helped replicate the Sun’s power to create the atomic bomb, while Richard Wagner had Tristan inveigh against daylight as the enemy of romantic love. In this splendidly illustrated volume packed with captivating facts, extraordinary myths, and surprising anecdotes, Cohen not only explains the star that so inspires us, but shows how multifacted our relationship with it has been—and continues to be.
933 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 1, 2010
73 people are currently reading
582 people want to read
About the author
Richard A. Cohen
33 books25 followersRichard A Cohen is the author of Chasing the Sun: the story of man's relationship to that star, By the Sword: a history of sword fighting and How to Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers.
From 2015 to 2017, he was been the tour expert for the New York Times tour of the World War I battlefields of France and Belgium.
He is a former publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton, and the founder of Richard Cohen Books, as well as former director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.
He is a five-time U.K. national sabre champion and was selected for the British Olympic fencing team in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984. He lives in New York City with his wife, the literary agent Kathy Robbins.
From 2015 to 2017, he was been the tour expert for the New York Times tour of the World War I battlefields of France and Belgium.
He is a former publishing director of Hutchinson and Hodder & Stoughton, and the founder of Richard Cohen Books, as well as former director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.
He is a five-time U.K. national sabre champion and was selected for the British Olympic fencing team in 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984. He lives in New York City with his wife, the literary agent Kathy Robbins.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
June 23, 2015
An interesting book, and the author definitely should be commended on the variety of different considerations and aspects of human thought about the sun that he covers. A couple of things mar this book, though, and stopped me from giving it 3 stars (I would have given it 2.5 if that were available). First, there were a number of clear astronomical mistakes, even though in the acknowledgments the author said that experts read over the book. For example, at one point he claims that at the equinox the sun goes over the observer's zenith. This is only true if you're standing right on the equator, and nowhere else on the planet. There is also some pretty silly colonialist anti-western bias that comes out in the early chapters. Maybe that's a result of the kind of sources the author consulted, but he also seemed to endorse a bit of it (the Chinese, Indians, people of the Americas were "pre-science" while the Greeks were the epitome of science, etc). There is a great deal of work available now that demonstrates the falsity of these ideas. Finally, in one of the last chapters, the author makes a pathetically bad argument to reject the idea of human-caused climate change, based on the "we don't know with 100% certainty" reasoning common to these climate deniers. The reasoning is extremely poor. We don't know *anything* with 100% certainty, yet the author didn't see the need to add such a caveat to all the other claims he made in the book about the composition of the sun, how it works, its influence on humans, etc. We don't know with 100% certainty ANY fact about the sun, yet the author did not find it necessary to write chapters considering the possibility that the sun is not responsible for the seasons, or that solar storms don't play a role in causing aurorae, or a host of other silly things. This book is worth checking out, but has to be taken with a grain of salt.
December 4, 2015
From BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week:
"Once upon a time we thought that we were the centre of the universe and that even the sun revolved around us...
Thousands of years later we know that our earliest, most basic idea about our place in the cosmos was false, and that that cosmos is vastly larger than we ever dreamed. We are mere specks..."
Richard Cohen took eight years to write his account of the sun. The sun's biography, in fact. He looks at the myth, the legend, the science. Also the social context and how the sun figures in various art forms. And, will it be with us for ever? We have to hope so. His celebration of that gold disc in the sky is now caught in five episodes...
In the first of five episodes, abridged by Penny Leicester, the author highlights some of the astounding myths associated with the sun, then he views the pefect sunrise...
Reader Allan Corduner
Producer Duncan Minshull.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlbss
"Once upon a time we thought that we were the centre of the universe and that even the sun revolved around us...
Thousands of years later we know that our earliest, most basic idea about our place in the cosmos was false, and that that cosmos is vastly larger than we ever dreamed. We are mere specks..."
Richard Cohen took eight years to write his account of the sun. The sun's biography, in fact. He looks at the myth, the legend, the science. Also the social context and how the sun figures in various art forms. And, will it be with us for ever? We have to hope so. His celebration of that gold disc in the sky is now caught in five episodes...
In the first of five episodes, abridged by Penny Leicester, the author highlights some of the astounding myths associated with the sun, then he views the pefect sunrise...
Reader Allan Corduner
Producer Duncan Minshull.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wlbss
December 27, 2021
Well worth reading.
December 8, 2015
This was a very different choice for me as I don't normally pick much non-fiction but I enjoyed this thorough comprehensive study on the sun and looking at how the sun has been analysed and used in mythology and cultures through history and explored in artistic form through eg. poetry, music, photography, visual arts and literature. Then turn the subject on its head and we get the nitty gritty of complex science, solar physics, facts and figures.
So trying to accumulate all this in to an interesting book could not be easy but I feel Cohen did it and got that balance for me personally.
I listened to this via audio as it was picked by Radio 4 and I listened in small bursts but I could imagine it could of felt much harder in a physical book form. Reading others reviews many have mentioned the flaws but I really don't have the knowledge to dispute any of it. I approached this not knowing many of the finer factual details or myth and left learning plenty and was engaged the whole way through so what more can anybody ask from a non- fictional book?. Four out of five stars from me!.
So trying to accumulate all this in to an interesting book could not be easy but I feel Cohen did it and got that balance for me personally.
I listened to this via audio as it was picked by Radio 4 and I listened in small bursts but I could imagine it could of felt much harder in a physical book form. Reading others reviews many have mentioned the flaws but I really don't have the knowledge to dispute any of it. I approached this not knowing many of the finer factual details or myth and left learning plenty and was engaged the whole way through so what more can anybody ask from a non- fictional book?. Four out of five stars from me!.
January 14, 2018
An enjoyable, busy read about the sun. Covered everything from mythology and religion, to the science over the years, to art, history, music, all built around the Sun.
Brother's collection
Brother's collection
July 28, 2016
I picked this book up at the Museum of Natural History, and when I finally got to reading it I can only phrase this text as a long string of disappointments occasionally interspersed with interesting facts. Once in a while, the author would say something that was fascinating and engrossing, and sometimes it even continued for a full chapter; rarely longer. I feel like he could have presented his many facts in a more interesting manner, but that's not the major problem I have with this book, even though it is the most pervasive and made it one of the factors that most diminished the readability of the text.
The cover page claims that Richard Cohen, the author, is writing in the "grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer", but he rarely brings himself back into the text, and when he does it's usually to marvel at some non-Western cultural and to make small assertions that can do nothing but establish his belief, however subconscious, that non-Western societies are strange, different, and above all else, never superior to the Western counterpart. When talking about Chinese astronomy, he is quick to demean it. When, at the beginning of the book, he talks about cultures in relation to the sun "before science", it is almost entirely non-Western societies he talks about. When, at the end, he goes to India to see a sunset, it is filtered through the eyes of a Westerner who seems to love judging cultures that are not his own.
Also, as mentioned by other reviewers, this man seems to discard global warming as happening simply because he met one scientist who doesn't like it, and his conclusions about it are basically "well I don't want to accept that it's us so it's the sun." If you look up the author, though, you discover that he's decided gay people don't exist because he claims to be converted straight, so it's really not a surprise that he leans towards the realm of pretending his lack of progressivism stems from some scientific base. With his backwards opinions he just can't keep to himself, his constant othering of non-Western cultures, and his privileged eight year long trek around the world in search of facts for his tedious book, I'd say he does continue a grand tradition; that of the Western, white man exploring parts of the world he doesn't understand and exploiting it, all so he tell the story he wants to.
The cover page claims that Richard Cohen, the author, is writing in the "grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer", but he rarely brings himself back into the text, and when he does it's usually to marvel at some non-Western cultural and to make small assertions that can do nothing but establish his belief, however subconscious, that non-Western societies are strange, different, and above all else, never superior to the Western counterpart. When talking about Chinese astronomy, he is quick to demean it. When, at the beginning of the book, he talks about cultures in relation to the sun "before science", it is almost entirely non-Western societies he talks about. When, at the end, he goes to India to see a sunset, it is filtered through the eyes of a Westerner who seems to love judging cultures that are not his own.
Also, as mentioned by other reviewers, this man seems to discard global warming as happening simply because he met one scientist who doesn't like it, and his conclusions about it are basically "well I don't want to accept that it's us so it's the sun." If you look up the author, though, you discover that he's decided gay people don't exist because he claims to be converted straight, so it's really not a surprise that he leans towards the realm of pretending his lack of progressivism stems from some scientific base. With his backwards opinions he just can't keep to himself, his constant othering of non-Western cultures, and his privileged eight year long trek around the world in search of facts for his tedious book, I'd say he does continue a grand tradition; that of the Western, white man exploring parts of the world he doesn't understand and exploiting it, all so he tell the story he wants to.
July 5, 2022
3.5 stars.
Cohen says, in Chasing the Sun's introduction, that he was inspired to write the book after realizing there is not a comprehensive history of the star that gives our planet life. His goal, then, was to create both an exhaustively researched cultural history of the sun's importance to humanity -- in spiritual and scientific terms -- and a granular exploration of the sun's importance scientifically, from the way it helps create life and how it can also harm us.
The result is an interesting, albeit bloated, book. Chasing the Sun is engrossing for the first 250-300 pages. This is clearly a labor of love for Cohen, who spends hundreds of pages discussing everything from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, and their associated Sun Gods, and the explosion of astronomical science, from Newton to Einstein, that led us to important and world-altering perspective shifts.
But the book's dual goal also hinders it. While I loved reading about humanity's cultural fascination with the Sun, I was less interested in reading extensive passages about skin cancer, the food chain, and ocean flora. As such, the back end of the book reads like a dry science textbook - even when touching on subjects I'm interested in.
All in all, I appreciate what Cohen attempted here. While it often feels like a mixed bag, there is so much here to learn that I can't help but get giddy at the thought of it. As someone who's always dabbled with astronomy and found the universe exciting, it's hard not to love a book that is so dedicated and focused on our central star.
Cohen says, in Chasing the Sun's introduction, that he was inspired to write the book after realizing there is not a comprehensive history of the star that gives our planet life. His goal, then, was to create both an exhaustively researched cultural history of the sun's importance to humanity -- in spiritual and scientific terms -- and a granular exploration of the sun's importance scientifically, from the way it helps create life and how it can also harm us.
The result is an interesting, albeit bloated, book. Chasing the Sun is engrossing for the first 250-300 pages. This is clearly a labor of love for Cohen, who spends hundreds of pages discussing everything from the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, and their associated Sun Gods, and the explosion of astronomical science, from Newton to Einstein, that led us to important and world-altering perspective shifts.
But the book's dual goal also hinders it. While I loved reading about humanity's cultural fascination with the Sun, I was less interested in reading extensive passages about skin cancer, the food chain, and ocean flora. As such, the back end of the book reads like a dry science textbook - even when touching on subjects I'm interested in.
All in all, I appreciate what Cohen attempted here. While it often feels like a mixed bag, there is so much here to learn that I can't help but get giddy at the thought of it. As someone who's always dabbled with astronomy and found the universe exciting, it's hard not to love a book that is so dedicated and focused on our central star.
September 28, 2015
To be honest, I wouldn't have naturally picked this up on my own steam. It was mentioned in a group here on GoodReads in a challenge thread and caught my eye. After looking into it a bit, I figured it might be right up my alley because it covers a wealth of subjects through the lens of it's specified solar theme and has the twist of "popular science" thrown in. I'm a pop science junkie. Let's blame Bill Nye. Or, you know, thank him.
I think I was hoping for more author personality. It felt a bit like falling down a Wikipedia similar article hole at times though this was certainly better researched than most wikipedia pages. The information was interesting and I found that it answered some questions I'd had jangling and jumbling at the back of my head for ages. I just wish certain chapters (really any of the sections pertaining to the arts) had more flavor. There's certainly a time for frankness in such a book but when it's billed as a 'grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer,' I do expect a bit of the personal add-in. There is the odd anecdote here and there but it wasn't the norm.
All in all, Cohen's undertaking is impressive and there's enough interest to get through the book. But there is the dry spot amidst the so-called epic-ness and a heavy chance of the odd skim-through.
I think I was hoping for more author personality. It felt a bit like falling down a Wikipedia similar article hole at times though this was certainly better researched than most wikipedia pages. The information was interesting and I found that it answered some questions I'd had jangling and jumbling at the back of my head for ages. I just wish certain chapters (really any of the sections pertaining to the arts) had more flavor. There's certainly a time for frankness in such a book but when it's billed as a 'grand tradition of the scholar-adventurer,' I do expect a bit of the personal add-in. There is the odd anecdote here and there but it wasn't the norm.
All in all, Cohen's undertaking is impressive and there's enough interest to get through the book. But there is the dry spot amidst the so-called epic-ness and a heavy chance of the odd skim-through.
January 1, 2012
The opening chapters and the final chapters were pretty good, they were more science packed. The middle chapters included things like "Opera's devoted to the sun" and "Art devoted to the sun" etc. which in general I wouldn't have minded but he went through the artists so quick and with so little emphasis that I felt like I was reading lists in the middle of this book which was a total throw off, especially the "songs devoted to the sun" section. They were also not in my opinion as well written and though you could tell that the author had a great love of art he had a hard time communicating this in words. There was even a chapter on Sun inspired Sci Fi novels? This was a bit of a lot of things, pretty much anything related to the sun and humans somehow made it into this book.
November 28, 2015
book of the week - a combination of pop-science, myth, historical trivia and travel.
January 21, 2011
Fascination rendition of the significance of the Sun to humanity since the ascension of human consciousness to the mythology developed by us throughout historical times. Worth reading it!
March 9, 2021
really 1.5 but as Goodreads won't let me I'll give it a generous 2. It is very western-centric, it is often just plain wrong or slightly better (?) gives weight to the idea of just one person (climate change, quantum theory). So it is a really interesting idea but not well executed. I was hoping for a Mark Kurlansky style single-subject investigation instead what I got was a bad mishmash. The weakness in the parts I knew to be wrong or at least dubious weakened my faith in the information that was new to me. The scientific sections were particularly weak in both clarity and content, presumably reflecting the author's uncertainty in this area. To be read with a degree of scepticism.........
Read
November 11, 2023dnf @ ~5%
look i know 5% seems small... but this book is almost 600 pages and 5% covered 2 chapters
I started to see some concerning things within those 2 chapters enough to make me question how this book was written in 2010.
I checked other people's reviews, which I normally don't at all in order to not influence what I expect from a book but I needed to know if what I was concerned about were just blips... or if they were consistent and would make this read a struggle. Unfortunately, the red flags that I saw, other people saw and they were repeated. I love astronomy, I love adding a cultural anthropology twist to it, but I think this book failed at being either of those things.
look i know 5% seems small... but this book is almost 600 pages and 5% covered 2 chapters
I started to see some concerning things within those 2 chapters enough to make me question how this book was written in 2010.
I checked other people's reviews, which I normally don't at all in order to not influence what I expect from a book but I needed to know if what I was concerned about were just blips... or if they were consistent and would make this read a struggle. Unfortunately, the red flags that I saw, other people saw and they were repeated. I love astronomy, I love adding a cultural anthropology twist to it, but I think this book failed at being either of those things.
May 11, 2017
Wow! this was thorough! super readable and packed with facts about the sun from every possible field of study. took forever to read but well worth the library fines.
November 1, 2017
Well done.
November 8, 2017
Un libro maravilloso que NECESITO sea parte de mi colección personal. Recomendado absolutamente.
August 7, 2020
Wide ranging
An amazing, wide ranging book, taking in everything from science, to art, to history, to culture, all based upon the Sun, and it's effect on the Earth and all of us.
An amazing, wide ranging book, taking in everything from science, to art, to history, to culture, all based upon the Sun, and it's effect on the Earth and all of us.
Want to read
August 2, 2023A great book about the depression and lives of women surviving in a small town, trying to give their lives meaning.
November 27, 2025
Long read, but very interesting. Everything you ever wanted to know about the sun and our relationship to it from mythological, historic, scientific, cultural, literary, religious perspectives.
June 19, 2012
First book I have given up on in a long time. That is not something I'd normally want to do, or to admit to if I did. I'm really sad as the book seemed to have a lot of promise.
What the author has done is start with an interest in the Sun. OK, fair enough.
He then went to a lot of specialists and asked for them to tell him what they knew. Seems reasonable.
Then he wrote a book about what he found out. Should be good.
Sadly the book is really just a regurgitation of what he was told with none of his own story telling skill or understanding and passion for the information actually making much of an appearance.
I found the result to be flat, dull, disconnected and almost unreadable. What a shame.
What the author has done is start with an interest in the Sun. OK, fair enough.
He then went to a lot of specialists and asked for them to tell him what they knew. Seems reasonable.
Then he wrote a book about what he found out. Should be good.
Sadly the book is really just a regurgitation of what he was told with none of his own story telling skill or understanding and passion for the information actually making much of an appearance.
I found the result to be flat, dull, disconnected and almost unreadable. What a shame.
October 21, 2011
This is a thoroughly researched, densely packed book that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the Sun. Cohen explains how our knowledge and perceptions of the Sun have changed through the last three millennia or so. He describes how we've thought of the Sun in science, religion, art (including visual arts, literature and poetry, and music), and politics, and probably a few perspectives I've missed. It's very well written, although it sometimes gets technical, whether he's writing about solar physics or literary symbolism. It's always engaging. It is quite long, however, and takes concentration to read. It is not a quick read. But from sunrise on Mount Fuji to sunset in Varanasi, there's something here for almost everyone.
August 28, 2012
This book is long, a comprehensive list of human cultures around the globe and there connection to the sun. I thought it would be more science oriented, but in the end it washer about human cultures and their activities and how those things relate to the sun. It did have some good moments, however, I really had to plow hard to get to some of them. The section on the sun and literature was a particular bore. I did find the historical overview of the science of learning about the sun to be interesting. In the end, it was a great book to read 10 or 15 pages at a time in order to fall asleep at night. By the time I finished it, my wife was joking that I had been reading it since third grade.
March 5, 2011
interesting genre, a bit more involved than mere popularization of science, like one i read a few months back on chlorophyll, revolves around everything you want to know about the sun, from a variety of perspectives.
chapters on science, beginning and end of book were interesting, chapters on literature etc, the middle dragged and put me to sleep, which probably says more about my interests than the interest level of the writing.
chapter on calendars worth anyones time, rest of book worthwhile to those already fascinated by these topics.
i appreciate the effort and the research, browse chapter on calendars to see if it grabs you.
chapters on science, beginning and end of book were interesting, chapters on literature etc, the middle dragged and put me to sleep, which probably says more about my interests than the interest level of the writing.
chapter on calendars worth anyones time, rest of book worthwhile to those already fascinated by these topics.
i appreciate the effort and the research, browse chapter on calendars to see if it grabs you.
October 3, 2015
(NB: My copy of this book has 574 pages; the text concludes on page 511, and the remainder is notes, etc.)
In some ways I feel like this book was expressly designed for someone like me. I enjoy reading both history and (pop) science -- this book has both, with generous helpings of mythology, art, literature, and so on. The author takes his subject to include almost anything about the sun and humanity's relationship to it, and this leads to frequent tangents. Which, honestly -- I love. If you're into microhistories/popular science/sort of vaguely sociological stuff, I think you'll enjoy this.
In some ways I feel like this book was expressly designed for someone like me. I enjoy reading both history and (pop) science -- this book has both, with generous helpings of mythology, art, literature, and so on. The author takes his subject to include almost anything about the sun and humanity's relationship to it, and this leads to frequent tangents. Which, honestly -- I love. If you're into microhistories/popular science/sort of vaguely sociological stuff, I think you'll enjoy this.
April 22, 2013
I am giving this book three stars because of the amount of information that it contained. I learned a lot reading it. However, it was a very difficult book to read. Apparently the author felt it necessary to include every single piece of information he gathered during research. He jumped from topic to topic. It was difficult to get into and more difficult to sludge through. I would not recommend this to others. It was clear reading this book that the author was very impressed with himself and hopefully that's enough.
October 22, 2013
A good book, but it suffered I thought from a tendancy in modern non-fiction to essentially be collections of knowledge linked by a theme. There was no personality of the author in the book. Not that you necessarily need that, but this is not the first book that, though erudite, seemed to be a posh wikipedia of a work.
I felt this too about "Jerusalem," which, though it had an obvious theme, was to my eyes a chronological collection of bad men doing bad things to one another, with little about the city itself.
In this book we learn a lot about the sun.
I felt this too about "Jerusalem," which, though it had an obvious theme, was to my eyes a chronological collection of bad men doing bad things to one another, with little about the city itself.
In this book we learn a lot about the sun.
June 18, 2011
A wide-ranging book covering many subjects, some more related to the sun than others. Unsurprisingly, given the variety of the subject matter, I found some chapters fascinating (the ones about science and the history of science, in particular) others somewhat intersting (for example the older history of sun worship) and some of no real interest at all (such as the chapters on the sun as inspiration in art, theatre, opera etc).
Overall definitely worth reading though.
Overall definitely worth reading though.
December 15, 2015
An epic story indeed. This book was too big for bedtime so I left it in the living room and read a chapter or a few pages when I felt like it. The best chapters were brilliant - and I can imagine that all the chapters were good but that for each individual different chapters might be the ones to spark the imagination because it covers so many different areas - science, history, culture, art, religion (to name a few!).
June 28, 2012
Cohen was aiming for a comprehensive book about all topics related to the sun- the sun in art, music, etc. but he included anything remotely tangential to the sun which made the book seem like just a random listing of sun references. There was no overall narrative thread. The science chapters were most interesting although not very well written.
Read
April 2, 2011A throwback book of scholarship, like when scholarship wasn't limited to the academies, but any curious wanderer with the means and leisure time could pursue subjects and write about them.
while full of interesting information, Cohen manages to make this read like a boring history book in parts--better when he's writing first person when visiting places. Just too damn long of a book, really.
while full of interesting information, Cohen manages to make this read like a boring history book in parts--better when he's writing first person when visiting places. Just too damn long of a book, really.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews