cover image Doctor Copernicus

Doctor Copernicus

John Banville. Vintage Books USA, $14.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-679-73799-5

These unusually fine biographical novels vivify Copernicus, the man who reshaped the medieval world view, and 16th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, whose science was a means to pursue the nature of God. (Oct.)