**** Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman - This is just an all around fun read. Richard Feynman's memoirs tell the story of a man who has had lots of crazy adventures throughout his life. I especially liked the part where he was talking about his adventures picking locks and cracking safes.
He is best known for his successes in physics (he even talks about how burdensome his Nobel prize was in that field), but it was pretty interesting to learn about his exploits in biology, drawing, drumming and apparently lots of different stories about picking up women. I remember talking about him in college in one of my history classes (well, we talked about him in several of my physics classes as well) because of his interest in the culture of Tuva and especially the throat singers* in that region (they can produce two notes at one time, which is interesting from a physics perspective and also produces a remarkable sound). Unfortunately, that area of interest for him was not even mentioned in the book.
In any case, the writing is better than the writing of most physicists I've read, but it's not great writing. Still, it's definitely an easy and worthwhile read.
* I've only heard proper throat singing in a live setting once, and that was when Nripal demonstrated for us at the IDDS talent show last year. It truly is amazing.
Caption competition 23
1 day ago
4 comments:
such a good read!
re: tuvan throat singing - there's a modern classical composer that wrote a throat singing concerto for himself, and he samples a recording of himself counting in japanese and then going into a little throat singing at six years old. also, the title of the piece is "On a Sufficient Condition for the Existence of Most Specific Hypothesis" hahaha
That's pretty awesome. And the title is just over the top enough to be brilliant!
Not great writing? That's probably the most simultaneously emphatic, engaging and easy and accessible literary work known to humankind! Wowee!
Reevaluate your definition of great writing!
I stand by my statement. He jumps too quickly from one topic to another and it feels too abrupt. My main issue was his lack of transitions. But I would also argue that he could have done a better job with character development for many of the people he wrote about.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the book. I just can't call it great writing.
Post a Comment