Isaac the Alchemist

Using primary sources and reasoned conjecture, Mary Losure chronicles the difficult formative years of Isaac Newton. Narrator Steven Crossley has a professorial-sounding English accent but bubbles with reverent enthusiasm for his subject, sometimes with humor. In the age before the development of physics, the prickly and solitary young Newton worked tirelessly to use mathematics to explain what was then viewed as magic. Much of Newton's story is gleaned from his own carefully kept notebooks. Listeners can almost see the twinkle in Crossley's eyes as he reads from preposterous medicinal concoctions of the time and from Newton's list of his own boyhood sins--such as making pies on Sunday. Newton's scientific contributions cannot be overstated. Although he never unlocked the mystery of alchemy, he discovered the laws of physics, light refraction, and planetary motion. L.T. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine