I was just insulted. By a paperback. The book that insulted me was “Five equations that changed the world” by a Dr. Michael Guillen in 1995.
His psychologizing take on Newton’s youth was demeaning to the reader’s intellectual capacity, and after having experienced the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson, which contains quite a lot of newtoniana, Guillen’s baby-talk was… grating. Luckily I was able to put the book down after the insulting five pages of Newton-talk.
Instead I picked up the next book that my friend, the Fortran expert, lent me: a memoir of Richard Feynman. It shows verve and storytelling promise. Have you read Feynman? Any thoughts?
Stephenson is tough act to follow. Incidentally, I just finished Quicksilver, and the the copy of the book was the one I got from you a few years ago, when you where giving away books (thanks again :-)).
Feynman is great. I went to Caltech where he taught after WW2 and encountred quite a bit of Feynman trivia. I can recommend this Google video interview.
There is also this lovely essay by Danny Hillis that I recommend to any computer scientist.
I recommend the anecdotes on feynman.com.
Michael