Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

This book was a memoir of Richard P. Feynman, a theoretical physicist who worked on the Manhattan project building the atomic bomb.

The book is a lot of fun as it reveals that not only was he a brilliant and inquisitive mind, he was also a very mischievous character and something of a practical joker.

He tells a story for instance of learning how to pick the locks of all the safes of the army personnel. At one point he stole some top-secret confidential information from a locked cabinet and left a note criticizing the owner for his weak combination.

One of the things that makes this book enjoyable is that you can tell that Richard is…well…just a little different from the rest of us.

At one point he tells the story of how excited he was to volunteer to be hypnotized because he wanted a way to study hypnosis.

Another time he conducted experiments to see how his sense of smell compared to a dog’s and whether he could tell what someone had been holding by sniffing their hand.

If you are at all a scientifically-minded or curious person, or if you enjoy a good measure of lighthearted mischief, you’ll probably enjoy this book.