Galaxy Man: Thomas Wright of Durham in Bloomington, MN

'Despite the efforts of ancient, medieval and renaissance astronomers, and the labours of Newton, Halley and the Herschels, it was a carpenter's son from a tiny village in the north of England who first began to glimpse the true nature of the Milky Way'. Simon Webb's new book is the first stand-alone biography of Thomas Wright (1711-86), astronomer, garden-designer and architect of Byers Green, County Durham.