2014 Book Goal: 52 (mostly non-fiction)
2014 Books Read: 5 (80% non-fiction)

I don’t read a lot of biographies, but every once in a while I find a good one.  This biography of Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman was a good one.  It is the story of one of the giants of science – a man that made many important contributions to America and the world.  In it, you see his early years as he works to figure out who he is.  That combined with happy accidents, chance meetings and making the most of opportunities culminated in the evolution of this “curios character.”

It starts off as a bit self-serving and occasionally wanders down an uninteresting path, but overall it is a good read.   I love the strange paths Feynman takes you down from his early days of being a wunderkind budding techie 8 year old to a habit of cracking safes while working on “the bomb.”  This collection of recollections is throughout entertaining and often downright funny.

I enjoyed the fact that Feynman exposes his “real” side.  He never seemed comfortable with the “big shot physicist” label and all the time struggled to just “figure things out” in life.   He was a sometimes troubled, sometimes odd, sometimes downright weird and always brilliant man.  The book reads very easily and I flew through it.

I didn’t walk away with any life changing realizations or deep understanding of anything new.  I walked away entertained with a new appreciation for this man I had known only from tidbits of curious stories.  Good stuff.

Now, I want to read his other book, “What Do You Care What Other People Think?”