Apparently my understanding of the controversy over Neptune's discovery was incomplete. Standage's call on Pluto saves the book from feeling too dated in the last few chapters. And really, most of the book is spent covering events that occurred over 150 years ago, so datedness isn't much of an issue. ( )

1 1/2 stars: Poor, draggy, not my thing. Perhaps put it down.

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From the back cover: On June 26, 1841, mathematician John Couch Adams stumbled across a report by Astronomer Royal, George Airy, describing the bizarre, unexplained orbital behavior of the planet Uranus. Adams theorized that the behavior could be explained by the gravitational pull of another planet, which had, up until then, never been seen or even posited before. If Adams were able to spot this mysterious new planet, he would have proven not only the existence of a new planet, but also the existence of a way to gain knowledge of worlds we cannot see. Unfortunately for him, he had a rival. The French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier calculated the planet's position shortly after Adams---and the race to see it began...

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First up-- I put down this book 126 pages into 234. I just couldn't summon up any more interest. Not sure what else to say than that. The book was simply uninteresting.... ( )

Adams, John Couch, 1819-1892/Neptune (Planet)/Planetology