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Last year I went home and I told my two closest friends from high school that I'd made a resolution that one in every five books I read was going to be nonfiction.

"One in FIVE?" said English Major Friend. "Wow, that's a lot. Good luck!"
"One in FIVE?" said Biology Major Friend. "Isn't that number kind of . . . ridiculously small? Um. Well. Good luck!"

Biology Major Friend also helpfully gave me recommendations; Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynmman: Adventures of a Curious Character was one of them. Richard Feynman, for the record, is physicist who worked on the Manhattan Porject and later won the Nobel Prize in physics for helping to develop quantum electrodynamic theory. One would imagine his autobiography would be reasonably serious business. One would be pretty much entirely wrong. If I were to make a pie chart of this book, it would be divided up something like this:

40%: Feynman wanders around gleefully trolling people ("so there was nothing to do at Los Alamos when we weren't working on the bomb, and I was super bored, so I taught myself how to crack safes and then broke into everyone's top-secret documents about the project and left annoying notes so they would think there was a leak! LOL!")
20%: Feynman solves ridiculously complex science/math problems and is like, oh, yeah, so you see that was pretty basic. Pure dumb luck! ("so then I reduced an abacus-seller to tears by how fast I could do cube roots. LOL!")
20%: Feynman decides to take up a new skill and promptly becomes semi-professional at it ("so I went to a nude-drawing class for kicks, and I ended up selling paintings under a pseudonym and having a private exhibition! LOL!")
10%: Feynman gets indignant about intellectual integrity and people not teaching science right ("so I was teaching at this university in Brazil and they asked me to give a speech about my experience, and I got up there and went 'UR DOIN IT WRONG.' LOL!")
10%: Feynman is a dirty old man who hangs out in topless bars (Becca: "Nooooooooooo don't hit on the undergraduates, Feynman! Oh too late. >.<")

Overall, an entertaining read, although occasionally I had to hide my head in shame at all the offhand discussions of science and math that I had to read five times over to make head or tail of while Feynman was like "LOL OBVIOUS".

However, there was one chapter - utterly unrelated to science or math - that made me cringe; that's the chapter where Feynman is like "So I kept buying food and drinks for girls in bars in Mexico! And none of them ended up sleeping with me! THAT IS SO UNFAIR, being a gentleman so does not pay out." I mean, in a way, I am kind of grateful for that chapter, because now if anyone ever asks me why I'm uncomfortable with guys paying for my food and drink and flat-out refuse to accept it . . . that's it. That's it right there.

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This made me giggle remembering the stories. Oh, god, I love this book. It made me want to do science because he was just so joyful and silly about it, and I figured that if I maybe just devoted my life to it and possibly also drumming I would be there too! It turns out you also have to be a supergenius though, so that plan is out.

The "sequel" -- his other autobiography, "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" -- isn't AS fun but it's still a good time, and there's an extended passage on the Challenger disaster that is very much not lolarious at all but is really valuable.

Yeah, there is that minor difficulty. I had been kind of suspecting it would be a hitch from the first few chapters where he's like "and so that is how, at age ten, I became the premiere radio repairman in Far Rockaway! LOL!" but hope springs eternal . . . I could totally manage playing the bongos for a ballet, at least, right? Right? (I also laughed at the chapter where he is staying at the rabbinical school and he's like "so I kept trying to troll them by finding holes in their Talmudic arguments, but all the tiny nitpicks I found they'd already thought of! I WAS OUT-TROLLED.")

Oh, I was curious about that - thank you! I suspect I will end up checking it out sometime in the near future.

I like your plan for the books you're going to read and I need to figure out something like that for myself.

I've been keeping track this way for about a year and a half now, and it's working well so far - I know that for some people reading quotas make reading feel like a chore, but for me it's definitely nice to have a way to keep track and make sure that I'm getting some variety in my reading material.

I had to a reading quota for my children's literature class and I tried to do a mix of books there. My prof was even impressed with the mix of things that I read so I know it can work for me.

It just wasn't as thought out as yours, but I like using my LibraryThing to keep track and making sure I'm reading a lot of stuff.

What kind of quotas does your class give you?

For that class, we had to create a LibraryThing and read or watch 50 things and review them.

There's a link to my LibraryThing on my journal and I don't think its arranged in the order I put them in, but you can see all the stuff I read.

The idea was to get a mix of things from all ages and different formats since kids are finding stuff in a lot of ways.

I ended up reading a huge mix from graphic novels and manga to YA books and picture books along with watching a few movies.

AT the moment, I'm just using my LibraryThing to note what I've read but I want to get back into writing reviews.

Writing reviews is fun!

. . . uh, I mean, obviously I think so. But it's an activity I fully encourage. :D

I hope that the guy isn't quite the way you shorthand describe him in the book, because this makes me want to kick him.

In the teeth.

All of it does.

Honestly, as I was reading, the chapter made me cringe, the attitude in general makes me cringe, but I didn't hold it too much against Feynman specifically, and I was trying to figure out why - I think first of all because he's kind of treating the whole thing as a wacky social experiment, but second of all . . . well, at least he's upfront about it. Like, it's very matter-of-fact: "I am going to bars to get laid, this is the formula, it's not working! Clearly I need to find a different formula."

What I really hate is the fact that that transaction, and that formula, have become so coded into gender relations in our society.

Well actually the bars thing was just the icing on the cake.

Everything up to the last 10% had me going
:\
:|
>:|
>8|

The whole "so then I did x because everyone else is stupid. LOL! 8D"

He just sounds like a complete ass. I know people like that. I hate them.

Oh, in that case, yeah. As I said below, basically he's a troll. He's a very intelligent, pretty entertaining troll, and he often makes some good points! But he totally gets his kicks from proving how clever he is, so if that's going to annoy you, definitely don't read the book.

Feynman is kind of ~*~lolarious~*~ sometimes. And kind of a jerk some other times. (Is "Sure You're Joking" the one with the story about the door? Because that gets me every time.) I'd recommend reading "What Do You Care What Other People Think," too, because it goes into some depth about his time on the Rogers Commission investigating the Challenger disaster. While that part's a little depressing (especially if you're familiar with what happened to the Columbia, and how that happened), it is satisfying as hell to hear about Feynman doing the job that none of the other Commission members were doing. It's got some jargon, but it's pretty easily overlooked, I think.

He is such a troll, it's kind of hilarious. If he'd lived in the days of the internet you know he'd be popping up on fandom_wank every other day. (Hahaha yeah, it is in fact the one with the door! I laughed so hard at that.)

I am getting more and more intrigued by this book! And definitely putting it on my list. There's also a movie coming up about the Challenger disaster, isn't there? With somebody slated to play Feynman?

He totally would, omg. That said, I have to say again that it just makes it incredibly satisfying to watch that trolling instinct turned on people who really deserve it, a la Rogers Commission.

David Strathairn, apparently? It's categorized as "in production" with incredibly few details available about it, but also apparently it's coming out this year? That makes me think it's stuck in development hell.

Oh, also, if you're reading nonfiction books, can I recommend Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin's autobiography? It's out-of-print, but used copies are available (like here (http://www.betterworldbooks.com/Cecilia-Payne-Gaposchkin-id-0521483905.aspx)), and if you can find it in your library, I highly recommend it. She was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in Astronomy from Harvard, and she talks a lot about women in astronomy at the time (1920s-1950s).

I am excited to see that, I won't lie.

Oh, thaaat explains why I had never heard of it until I went to scan Feyman's wikipedia page! Yeah, you're probably right, which is a shame - I would have loved to see that.

Dude, I always welcome recommendations, especially nonfiction recs (because I am not as good at finding those for myself), and I will absolutely check my library for it! That sounds seriously fascinating.

Hahaha, everyone keeps telling me amazing Feynman stories. I must read his books for myself!

I would recommend! They are HIGH ON LULZ.

Richard Feynman! I read his book when I was fairly young, and before we went to visit Los Alamos, so it was really fun to see all the buildings and whatnot. Also, my family is made of engineers, chemists, biologists, et al., and I was clearly edging towards English even then, so I think it was a desperate attempt to keep me with the herd.

You've got a point about the pettiness of his approach, too. I didn't notice it as a kid, and my cousins were practical jokers too--minus the "I am doing this to prove how smart I am!" element--who thought that learning new skills to pull a prank was the height of genius; they were older, though, and never got mean or skeezy like Feynman does.

I actually think the trick that struck me as the pettiest was the one where he noticed the waitresses were always busy . . . so he put the tip in an upside-down glass of water so they couldn't get it without spilling. That was just kind of a jerk move.

On the other hand, I totally cracked up at the door thing and the safecracking thing. I grant you full LOLs for that one, Feynman!

(My cousins - whom I love - aren't practical jokers, but they do have that same tendency to dive on the holes in your argument and pick it apart ad nauseum just for the lols, so that felt familiar to me too. *laughs*)

Yes, stuff like that is just plain mean.

I TOTALLY LEARNED HOW TO PICK LOCKS BECAUSE OF THAT. We, um, did not have any safes available, so I played with locks. Never got any good at it, though, because frequently lack of lock picking skillz = damaged lock. And now it's been yeeeeaarrs, and I would never be able to do it again.

(My cousins did most of their pranking in the context of University of California college dorms, so getting out of hand was never really an option. And I am proud to report that they never pulled fire alarms at 3 am. As for argument picking, that's normal dinner table conversation for us, sooooo...)

Hah, well, also you do not have the excuse of having been trapped at Los Alamos with nothing to do besides physics and lockpicking! You kind of have to wonder how all the other physicists passed their time - endless games of tic-tac-toe?

This reminds me of my feelings about Harold Bloom, Shakespeare critic extraordinaire. *G* He is such a jerk! But so hilarious! Though I think one must be a special kind of nerd to get WHY Bloom nattering about Falstaff is hilarious.

Edited 2010-05-06 22:51 (UTC)

HAHAHA OMG HAROLD BLOOM IS THE MOST HILARIOUS. His epic feud with Stephen King fills me with the kind of joy that only literary bitchfights do!

Okay, you must know about his ~Gnostic science fiction novel~, right? The one he has DISOWNED? That to me will always be the funniest thing about Harold Bloom.

OMG I HAD NOT TRULY LIVED AS A SCHOLAR UNTIL THIS MOMENT. *_* I MUST GET MY HANDS ON THIS BOOK IMMEDIATELY.

I am glad that someone besides fellow Shakespeare nerd from my college and me possesses a weird sort of affection for Mr. Bloom.

I KNOW RIGHT. I'm not sure any happiness in my academic life will ever compare to the glee I felt when I discovered it. (You have to read the Wikipedia page about the novel it's an unauthorized sequel to! Because not only is it a Gnostic science fiction novel, it's GNOSTIC SCI-FI FANFIC. *__________*)

I read a book about Richard Feynman not that long ago: Tuva or Bust! (written by a friend of his). Pretty entertaining and interesting, though Feynman's sketchiness did not come through at all.

I am torn about how I feel about Feynman's sketchiness! Because on the one hand, he is totally sketch, but on the other hand, he's so cheerfully upfront about it. He's just like, "Well, no one else was standing up to defend topless bars, so I figured I would take a stand! They're great places to hang out!"

>However, there was one chapter - utterly unrelated to science
>or math - that made me cringe; that's the chapter where >Feynman is like "So I kept buying food and drinks for girls in
>bars in Mexico! And none of them ended up sleeping with me! >THAT IS SO UNFAIR, being a gentleman so does not pay out." I >mean, in a way, I am kind of grateful for that chapter, >because now if anyone ever asks me why I'm uncomfortable with >guys paying for my food and drink and flat-out refuse to >accept it . . . that's it. That's it right there.

Exactly! I'm having trouble with this older man who keeps emailing me. He wants to know where I live so he can send me a gift. I say no way. He says something like 'not accepting gifts means you don't want to be friends'. Exactly. Why can't he take a hint? I'm too nice, that's my problem. I started out helping him with his studies in Swedish and now he's crazy about me. Why can't the ones I like be crazy about me?

Sorry. I guess I just needed to vent. :) Feel free to ignore that part.

Another thing - if buying drinks isn't getting him anywhere, you have to wonder what he's like... Ugly? Smelly? Bad attitude? Sounds like the latter, but maybe the rest too...

About reading nonfiction - I'd read so much more of that if it wasn't so expensive. In fact, I'd read more if books weren't so expensive period. Anyway, one in five sounds good to me.

Ugh, that is always so frustrating when that happens. I am sorry you have to deal with it! No means no, sketchy older guy. >.<

I am happy with one in five! It might not be super hardcore, but at least I feel like I am getting a little bit of an education in with my lulz.

One thing I found weird in Surely You're Joking is that in every story he has a different wife. And they're all just names, like "And then I took my wife Mary to the Zoo" but in the next story it's all "And then my wife Alice was happy that we were in Brazil".

And I found it kind of weird and a little sad that none of his wives merited any sort of explication or caring or anything at all. But in one of his other books there's this long, long story about his relationship with his first wife, who he was married to while he was at Los Alamos, and who had tuberculosis and who he sent coded letters to in order to escape the censors and who died young =(

I don't know, in my mind the character of Richard Feynman is partially explained by the tragic loss of his first love...of course, maybe if she'd lived he probably would have just cheated on and then divorced her like he did with the later three wives.

I think the story about the wife who died of tuberculosis in Los Alamos is actually in Surely You're Joking - at least, he definitely talks about it, and the letters they sneak through the censors, and about her death. And it's just this one moment in this overall very lulzy book where he is like "and then I went to the hospital, and I didn't really feel anything then until a few months later -" And then later he talks about having to take psych tests for the army, and they ask him if he talks to his dead wife, and he says yes. I remember that really well.

I dunno though, I like to think that he would have been less sketchy if she hadn't died, but . . . there was definitely some evidence of sketchiness before then too. On the other hand, I don't think you could spend that long and have that much fun figuring out coded letters with someone you didn't care about.

Yeah, but the other book has all the part where he falls in love with and marries her (knowing that she already has tuberculosis), and how although he loves her he has to keep away from her to keep from catching it, and all kinds of stuff like that.

Regarding sketchiness-counterfactuals, my reference point on this is A Moveable Feast (which is kind of similar to Surely You're Joking, I feel), where Hemingway clearly is deeply in love with his first wife, Hadley...but then he definitely cheats on her and she divorces him...

. . . and yet another compelling argument to read the other book! *adds to list*

Ah, Hemingway. Always our gold standard for classy behavior.

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