THE NORTHERN LIGHTS The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis

It's not easy to write a gripping narrative about a physicist, but Kristian Birkeland was no ordinary egghead. The Norwegian at the center of this excellent audiobook was a brilliant theoretician and inventor, and his personal life was filled with arctic and desert adventures, personal rivalries, substance abuse, and a touch of good old-fashioned madness. Birkeland (1867-1917) was decades ahead of his time with his ideas about auroras and other cosmic phenomena, yet he was cheated out of a Nobel Prize by an unscrupulous partner. Michael Cumpsty's narration of this romantic and ultimately tragic tale is warm, controlled, and even, and while the abridgment leaves a few obvious gaps, this is a first-rate scientific adventure. D.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]