Eureka!

Collective biographies, while fine in print, can present problems for audiobook narrators, which is the case in this production. The author's writing on 50 great scientists is fluent. And narrator Mark Meadows injects energy and just the right authoritative tone into his reading of the short biographies. He pronounces the names of Arabic, French, German, Dutch, and Russian scientists smoothly and with appropriate accents. However, the conclusion of each mini-biography is followed by a section of trivia and recommended reading that is introduced with the words "But there's more . . ." It would be easy to overlook those three words while reading a print version, but they're repeated 50 times throughout the audiobook. To his credit, Meadows varies his delivery slightly, but the repetition still detracts from the production. This is one audiobook that works better in print. C.M.A. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine