After a brief hiatus, we are back with an interesting set of selections for late August. It may still feel like summer, but these titles will remind us that reading can be both pleasurable and provocative. Herewith Glenn's suggestions (with commentary) for August.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman , by Feynman, Leighton, Hutchings (352 pages)
First Plagiarized Review: ‘Surely you must be joking…’ does not read
like an ordinary book. It reads like Reader’s Digest – a bunch of
anecdotes bundled together and presented to you, with Feynman as the
common thread that runs throughout. While at a glance, the book might
appear to be a light-hearted series of exchanges and incidents, the
reader could not be more wrong. Venture a little deeper, and the book
stands out as the testimony of a man who refused to stick to any kind of
conformity. Amidst all the pranks, the lock-picking experiences,
hypnotism or even topless bars, Feynman just reinforces the fact that
varied and even ostensibly scandalous interests can be pursued at
leisure away from work. After reading the book, there is little wonder
about Feynman’s life. Instead, there is a genuine urge to follow one’s
insanities and nurture them. This book is not an exhibition of a man’s
engaging madness – which is the general perceived view. ‘Surely you must
be joking…’ offers hope. It seems to indicate that rules that make no
sense need not be accepted. To the vast millions who are trapped in
mid-life crises and bewildered in the anonymous corporate world, this
book is a testament – you can go crazy, follow your quirks and do what
you think is right. It can be done. And that is definitely no joke.
Second Plagiarized Review: A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography,
but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel
Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in
his engagingly eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial
publication in 1985. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled
"Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it
comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity
Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as
know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize
that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what
constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by
rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total
disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world.
Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come
through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his
students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith
The Making of the Atomic Bomb, by Richard Rhodes (870 pages)
I've
blown the doors off the page maximum with this one (870 pages).
However, this book chronicles the personalities (including Feynman) and
the technical hurdles involved in the most challenging technical quest
in human history. Rhodes won the Pulitzer prize for his effort. In two
months, we could definitely finish it.
This book is a major work of historical synthesis that brings to life the
men and machines that gave us the nuclear era. Rich in drama and
suspense, ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' also has remarkable breadth
and depth, revealing new connections, insights and surprises. The book
bristles with detail and irony. There are raccoon coats and incendiary
raids, heavy water and theatrical satires, patent fights and suntan
lotion (worn in 1945 by physicists in the predawn darkness of the New
Mexican desert to protect them from the flash of the first bomb). There
was even a third ''gadget'' being readied to be dropped on Japan, even
as Hiroshima and Nagasaki smoldered. ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb''
offers not only the best overview of the century's pivotal event, but a
probing analysis of what it means for the future.
A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller (334 pages)
Second Plagiarized Review: Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized. --Paul Hughes
