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Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of Richard P. Feynman
Author: Richard Feynman
Amazon info

This book is actually a collection of letters that Richard Feynman wrote during his lifetime. Richard Feynman was the physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1965 for creating a quantum mechanical theory of electromagnetism (QED or Quantum Electrodynamics) and also created easy to understand pictures (Feynman diagrams) for showing how photons were exchanged by particles and anti-particles to create the electromagnetic force.

I found it interesting to note that although the book is divided into a number of chronological chapters, there really were two types of letters - the "early" and the "later". His early letters are those when he was off at school to his parents or to his first wife when he was doing his work on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. These letters are very much about his day to day experiences, his thoughts about his life, and are very personal. At the same time, you can see the emotional detachment and logical organization of the scientist (especially when you compare the letters his first wife writes in response). The "later" letters are mostly from the period when he has "settled down" with his third wife (the first wife died very young and the second wife was apparently a very brief marriage). These letters are generally to other physicists, and, to a surprising degree to young people asking his guidance on a physics career or on physics questions. In these letters his incredible intelligence, stubborn personality, eccentricities, and humor emerge.

The book was edited by his daughter (Michelle Feynman) and is enlightening and entertaining (although perhaps more entertaining for those of a scientific orientation). However, at 486 pages of correspondence, I believe the book could have been improved by a somewhat narrower selection.

Recommended for all scientists or those interested in the "scientific method".