Sixteenth-century Europe is teeming with change and controversy: wars are being waged by princes and bishops and the repercussions of Luther are being felt through a convulsing Germany. In a remote corner of Poland, a modest canon is practicing medicine and studying the heavens, preparing a theory...

Johannes Kepler, born in 1571 in southern Germany, was one of the world’s greatest mathematicians and astronomers. The novel *Kepler* by John Banville brilliantly re-creates his life and his work, which laid the foundation of the universe even while he was being driven from exile to exile by...