Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P Feynman
I actually read this book after having completed all of the Lois McMaster Bujold (I can see that author’s name being abbreviated in posts soon ;> ) books I have, but wanted to give you all a chance to read some other reviews before ploughing into a one genre cascade of reviews.
This book is about a scientist (if you haven’t heard of him previously, I’d recommend reading the Wiki article on him first, else he’ll seem to be prone to boasting) who had an incredibly interesting and diverse life. The book is basically an autobiography, which lists his experiments and achievements. I can tell I’m already losing a great deal of potential book-readers here, but trust me on this, it is worth reading. I hadn’t heard of Freeman Dyson’s (revised) quote regarding Mr Feynman until I read the wiki article, but I think it portrays him very well – all-genius, all-buffoon.
The book itself describe how Richard got interested in science, and about his experiments in a garden shed as a boy. It later describes his efforts to assist the allies during WWII, and just how human nature will normally prevail over stifling bureaucracy.
If you do enjoy the book, and are at all interested in science, you may be interested in his other works, please do feel free to leave a comment if you enjoyed them. (I’ve not grabbed a copy yet of his other works – is it worth searching them out?)
April 26th, 2010 2:00 am
Good book choice, Chris!
And what a blast from the past-didn’t realize this was such an old post
? left the emphasis off of how interesting of a character he was (grass and deprivation tanks) lol
if ya like books like this (I love them myself), check out 6 easy pieces, 6 not so easy pieces, and the lost lectures.
By other authors: schrodiners cat and the search for reality was great (I forget who that was off the top of my head sorry)
gods equation by Amir d aczel
incompleteness by goldstein
number by dantzig
mystery of the aleph by aczel
illustrated brief history of time and universe in a nutshell by hawking
faster than the speed of light by magueijo
…to name a few 😎
April 27th, 2010 6:00 pm
I’ll have to add those suggestions to my list. I’ve not read any proper books for a while, just airplane journey types (Chris Ryan, Andy McNab etc.), but seeing your comment motivated me to get around to check out Monday Begins on Saturday by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, as the MP4 player I was given on Friday for my birthday can also read text files. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Begins_on_Saturday for a run down on the story.
Oh, and leaving some info out on Mr Feynman’s activities was because at the time of this post, I was little more cautious (due to terms and conditions of some of my clients) mentioning some substances…
Have you checked out the new Amsterdam page on this blog yet?