Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”: Adventures of a Curious Character (Paperback)

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This book was a pleasure to listen to with various hilarious stories and showed the various clever hijinx Feynman created and the wild diversity of talent, entertaining personality, and intellect he had. He likes to play, to fool, to learn, and to fight anyone. This man is willing to go so far for his own amusement and this is one of the most interesting ways to write a biography I have ever seen — giving stories revealing aspects of a person’s personality and circumstances rather than pouring over life details — what’s left is an incredibly memorable book that I’m more likely to remember than any other biography. Yeah, Feynman does come off a bit pompous with humble bragging or like a clown with jokes that annoy others and this is certainly only a slice of who he is as a person, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a jerk like other reviews do and I don’t think he only valued intelligence. His complete disregard for authority and his distaste for pompous fools is both encouraging and well-founded. I think the world would be a more interesting place with personalities like Feynman’s and it’s hard not to say that his shenanigans did not contribute to his social intelligence and to his success overall.

Feynman’s sole focus on the bodies of women and his desire to sleep with them is slightly repulsive and certainly has not aged well.

For the rationality community: this reads a little bit like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Given more time, I would have wrote a better review.

Note: Listened to as an audiobook, the narrator did a phenomenal job and it may have added to my experience.