As a self-professed “fan” of science, I snatched this audio book up from Audible.com. It was very promising, as it concentrated its 8.5 hours on six renowned scientists, most of whom I’d read about before, but not all.
On the one hand it did have some advantages over the other two types of audio books about scientists I’ve read. For example, although A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is amazingly entertaining, because it covers so much, it gives just tiny tidbits about a given scientist – perhaps the largest pieces on one would be the equivalent of a page or two. Certainly less than five. Then on the other side of the spectrum are books such as Galileo or The Seashell on the Mountaintop, which give you in-depth knowledge of one scientist with maybe a few others thrown in but with only cursory attention. Although this might be great in some ways, it can sometimes be a bit too much information if the scientist is not interesting enough or the book isn’t written well. Six Great Scientists doesn’t have these problems because it divides it’s attention between six, but gives each enough attention that you do not feel cheated either.
Another thing that I liked about Six Great Scientists was that one of it’s aims was to talk about the personalities and not just focus on the science and scientific discoveries. Although this luxury is often available with the single-scientist biography, I still learned of things which I don’t remember reading about in the single-scientist biographies I’ve read. For example the fact that Galileo was an accomplished cook, or that he had created an instrument that his workshop made which sold like hot-cakes (of course I can’t remember the name of it now – no it wasn’t the telescope!), or a story about how Einstein had to temporarily leave a movie theater in Princeton once but went to the box office to make sure that they would know he had bought a ticket already (he was afraid they wouldn’t recognize him).
On the other hand, there are a few things that annoyed me about this book. For one, it is written in a somewhat bookish style. The author uses $100 words in places where they just are not necessary and some of these words I’d never heard of. I understood them, but it was almost as if I was reading something that was 100+ years old when certain forms of certain words were still in use that you just never see today. And no, the book wasn’t written that long ago. I can’t seem to find when it was written, but it was obviously at some point after Einstein’s death in 1955 at least.
The other main thing I struggled with was the narration. After about two or three hours I finally got used to the narrator enough to where I was able to fully concentrate on the content, but in those first two or three hours I was constantly wondering whether I should simply scrap the idea of listening to it and move onto something else. The narrator for my edition was Patrick Cullen, which is not the same as the narrator for the audiocassette version or CD. Cullen was not so much monotone as he was for the most part just uninteresting, or uninterested in the material. There was no life in his reading except in the rare occasions where he was quoting a letter that was obviously animated. Part of this may have to do with how the book was written in that a lot of it is written in short sentences, listing one fact after another. But still, Cullen seemed at times like we was reading a grocery list or something equally unexciting.
As mentioned, the author, J.G. Crowther, tried to include a lot of personal details and this helped to make the book a lot more enjoyable. I think without this and with the bad narration and the bookish style, it would have been deadly, but the personal accounts saved it. Still, at time these personal touches went a little far. Really, there was no reason to know what a typical shopping list for Newton was or a detailed listing of the furnishings in the Curies apartment. Fortunately there was not too much of this, but when it was included, it was a bit annoying.
All in all, I would recommend this book if you are interested in the scientists it covers – Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Madame Curie, and Einstein. Just consider getting the audio cassette or CD before the Audible.com version, and if you must get the Audible.com version, just note that you may have to struggle through the first quarter of the book before the narrator is no longer a distraction…
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Sarah Vowell is a unique voice, in more ways than one. In A Partly Cloudy Patriot, her third book, she mixes astute observations with historical facts and throws in a lot of wry humor and biographical musings that will have you laughing out loud at points. Idiologues will probably be impatient with the contradictions. Although she is unabashedly liberal, she is also unabashedly patriotic and fervent about the documents of the founding fathers. Not that these two are contradictory, but the way things play out liberals are often seen as unpatriotic because they are not flag wavers shouting “America first no matter what.”
Mean Genes