Rating: 
Summary: A Delight
Review: A delightful read - Jago has found a comfortable balance between the educational and the entertaining. While paying homage to the great mind of Birkeland, The Northern Lights provides an inside view of both science at the turn of the century and Norway's push for independence. Starting the book, I was expecting a depressing tale. Instead, I found myself awed by Birkeland's brilliance and inspired by his passion for discovery. The book follows step-by-step through his quest for answers and his struggle to prove the theories which he knew to be true. One can't help but feel sorry for Birkeland, who was certainly a victim of circumstance. Yet, 80+ years after the fact, the harsh details of his final days seem to be overshadowed by the splendor of the years preceding them. During that time, Birkeland proposed and defended prophetic pictures of the solar system. Like many great ideas, it took time for mankind to digest them. This book is proof that, in the grander scheme of things, his labors have been acknowledged.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine biography
Review: As reviewer Carter points out, this book is a biography of Kristian Birkeland, not a scientific treatise on the Northern Lights. And as reviewer Hoge points out, the writing style is more mainstream pop than dry academia. Personally, I found it quite readable. I'm not doing serious research on the subject, so I was fine with being entertained while I learned a little more about how the scientific community worked at the dawn of the 20th century. The primary criticism I have is that Jago was rather biased in favor her subject-- maybe justifiably so, but her flag waving was a little too blatant for me at times... Also, she stretched her material a bit, probably could have been a shorter book. Still, if you enjoyed books like Sobel's "Longitude" or Larson's "Devil in the White City," you'll probably enjoy "Northern Lights."
Rating:
Summary: Thank you for writing this book!
Review: Dear Lucy Jago,
I really enjoyed this book! I read the complete title so I knew it was about the MAN who unlocked the secrets of the Aurora Borealis... not about the "powerful and mystical Northern Lights". What an amazing man he must have been. Thanks for showing us his human side, strengths and weaknesses. I'm still left wondering what else he might have been able to accomplish if he had lived longer (and had a more healthy life style!)
I thought this book had a good balance between the technical aspects and storytelling. I didn't want a physics book about Aurora, if I did, then I would have gotten one. I wanted a history of science book, I wanted to know the "story", I wanted to meet the people, I wanted to know the community reaction at the time. I got all that and more.
Thanks for your fine work, I had an enjoyable few hours reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Thank you for writing this book!
Review: Dear Lucy Jago,
I really enjoyed this book! I read the complete title so I knew it was about the MAN who unlocked the secrets of the Aurora Borealis... not about the "powerful and mystical Northern Lights". What an amazing man he must have been. Thanks for showing us his human side, strengths and weaknesses. I'm still left wondering what else he might have been able to accomplish if he had lived longer (and had a more healthy life style!)
I thought this book had a good balance between the technical aspects and storytelling. I didn't want a physics book about Aurora, if I did, then I would have gotten one. I wanted a history of science book, I wanted to know the "story", I wanted to meet the people, I wanted to know the community reaction at the time. I got all that and more.
Thanks for your fine work, I had an enjoyable few hours reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Sappy, sensationalistic science
Review: For a topic as lovely (powerful and mystical) as this - the Northern Lights - its really sad how quickly the author reverts to sappy science drama writing. I was really disappointed by this book and am baffled by the other glowing reviews. All I can think is that this format - the Ken Burns approach to narrative drama in an actual historical event - has become so ubiquitous that people expect it in their science writing too.
Rating:
Summary: The Northern Lights by Lucy Jago
Review: I couldn't put this wonderfully readable book down. The story of how Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland a hundred years ago unlocked the riddle of the famous Northern Lights, discovered almost as a by-product the industrial process to make artificial nitrogen fertilizer, and was at the center of scientific, commercial and political intrigue, is brilliantly told by Lucy Jago. It is part the story of scientific discovery, part biography, part detective thriller. The science is explained in as simple terms as possible - without compromising the complexities involved (no footnotes, but a good bibliography for those who want to explore further). Birkeland was a driven man. One of those ultimately tragic persons, he took incredible risks. It comes as no surprise to read that his vision and fanatical zeal for scientific discovery cost him his marriage - and his life: he was barely 50 when he apparently committed suicide, alone in Japan in 1917. And it was not until another 50 years after his death that he was vindicated. Yet this book is also a story of an inspirational life. Reading this book, I was reminded that not only did Birkeland advance scientific understanding of the universe but, through his discovery of the processes to make artificial fertilisers, he played a key role in allowing for the expansion of global food supplies to feed the growing world population.
Rating:
Summary: A Forgotten Scientist, Realistically Remembered
Review: It was only in the 1960s that satellites and scientists had given a full scale explanation of why the northern lights occurred. It comes as a surprise to learn, then, that they were essentially confirming the work of a scientist of the early twentieth century, the first to study the aurora and to get the explanation right. It was a stunning scientific achievement, accomplished with the sort of icy adventure one associates with polar explorers, and he accomplished a good deal of other original work, too, but the name of Kristian Birkeland is almost unknown. It is a good thing that we now have _The Northern Lights: The True Story of the Man Who Unlocked the Secrets of the Aurora Borealis_ (Knopf) by Lucy Jago. Jago starts with a harrowing description of Birkeland's expeditions to northern observatories to get data, told with a novelist's skill. He needed the data to confirm his intuitions that the lights were due to the magnetic activity of the sun. If this weren't enough, Birkeland then went to the lab to design a series of vacuum chambers which could reproduce in miniature the solar system and could demonstrate the aurora artificially. His work, however, was barely mentioned in England, and then unfavorably. Birkeland's ideas confounded a unanimous opinion of British scientists, and the Royal Society, that space was a vacuum and nothing more; Lord Kelvin himself had decreed that the sun could have no effect on geomagnetic activity. Jago speculates that the slowness of acceptance of Birkeland's ideas set back auroral and geomagnetic physics by fifty years. Confirming his ideas so that even the British scientific establishment would have to accept them set Birkeland to thinking of a grand plan of several observatories around the Arctic which could do such things as triangulation to get a better picture of where the lights were. Such a plan would take a great deal of money. One of the strengths of Jago's biography is that she has told a good deal about Birkeland's drive for finance. He was granted various patents, including the one for pulling nitrogen out of the air to make fertilizer, the one that made him rich. Birkeland's dedication to his work took its toll on his health and his personal life. A late marriage was short-lived, and he descended into paranoia, probably fueled by overuse of alcohol and barbiturates to calm some sort of mania. He was successful in his financial dealings, but they brought him into conflict with the director of Norsk Hydro, who may have betrayed Birkeland out of a Nobel Prize. However, Birkeland was a likeable absentminded professor, drifting on walks between his tram stop and his office in a preoccupation of technical dreams. He was unable to keep a diary, remember appointments, or attend to accounting principles. He had the admirable trait of knowing how scientific knowledge was gained: "You learn more from your mistakes than your victories," he once said cheerfully, after being thrown through the air by an unexpected massive spark. He died in 1917, a minor scientific hero to his own Norway, but since his ideas have been confirmed by space exploration, his scientific stature has risen. A crater on the Moon is named for him, and "Birkeland Current" is now the proper name for the vertical flow of electrical particles which cause the auroras. He also finally has a fascinating and full biography to tell us about his unique genius.
Rating: 
Summary: This isn't the Discovery Channel....
Review: The Author's Note says "to prevent the book becoming an academic text ...I have kept references to a minimum and there are no footnotes." After 30 pages, I flipped to the back cover and learned the author is a "former documentary producer" - Bingo! If you like your science easy - preferably seated on your couch watching the discovery channel - this book is for you. However, if you are truly interested in science and are interested in Birkeland's theory in the context of scientific theory in the late 19th century or want to learn about the success of his arctic expeditions compared to Amundsen's or Shackleton's, look elsewhere than this 'novelization' of Birkeland's life.
Rating:
Summary: Biography/travelogue/history of science
Review: This book is a very intriguing biography of one of the great minds of the early twentieth century. It tells the story of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland and his obsession with the aurora borealis. The book starts off with his first expedition in Lappland, observing the Northern Lights from a mountaintop observatory over a winter season. Jago then takes us through the results of the expedition, and Birkeland's dreams for further research, and his inventive projects for funding his research. She follows Birkland through the rest of his life, including his role in starting Norskhydro, his trip to Egypt, and his death in Japan. What struck me about Birkeland's genius was how he turned design failures or accidents into new discoveries and further inventions- -how a high-voltage switch became a magnetic cannon, and how a magnetic cannon was transformed into a fertilizer furnace. Jago's descriptions of Birkeland's expeditions carry the details that are usually only found in travel narratives. The narration by Michael Cumpsty is quite clear throughout, and I was especially impressed by his ease with pronouncing the Danish, Egyptian, and Japanese names. One of the challenges of listening to a book of this type is following the scientific explanations orally. Although I got a basic idea of Birkeland's theories, I think reading them on paper instead of listening to them on tape would have been a little easier. I also missed the footnotes and biography that must have surely been available in the print version. Nevertheless, the tape was quite enjoyable and very informative.
Rating:
Summary: Biography/travelogue/history of science
Review: This book is a very intriguing biography of one of the great minds of the early twentieth century. It tells the story of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland and his obsession with the aurora borealis. The book starts off with his first expedition in Lappland, observing the Northern Lights from a mountaintop observatory over a winter season. Jago then takes us through the results of the expedition, and Birkeland's dreams for further research, and his inventive projects for funding his research. She follows Birkland through the rest of his life, including his role in starting Norskhydro, his trip to Egypt, and his death in Japan. What struck me about Birkeland's genius was how he turned design failures or accidents into new discoveries and further inventions- -how a high-voltage switch became a magnetic cannon, and how a magnetic cannon was transformed into a fertilizer furnace. Jago's descriptions of Birkeland's expeditions carry the details that are usually only found in travel narratives. The narration by Michael Cumpsty is quite clear throughout, and I was especially impressed by his ease with pronouncing the Danish, Egyptian, and Japanese names. One of the challenges of listening to a book of this type is following the scientific explanations orally. Although I got a basic idea of Birkeland's theories, I think reading them on paper instead of listening to them on tape would have been a little easier. I also missed the footnotes and biography that must have surely been available in the print version. Nevertheless, the tape was quite enjoyable and very informative.
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