Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing for a big fan of Genius by Gleick
Review: I loved Gleick's biography of Richard Feynman, "Genius". So my expectations for this book on possibly the most important mathematical and scientific figure were very high. I was somewhat disappointed. This biography is a little short and seemed to need a little more meat. I did not feel that truly made the reader understand the importance of Newton's accomplishments. I thought there was a little too much on Newton's forays into other fields like philosophy, etc. Also a little too much on the political fights with other scientists and mathematicians.
Rating: 
Summary: Figure Newton
Review: I though Galileo's Daughter was the best book I read last year, and this one is a close second. Only James Gleick has the self-confidence and skill to synthesize the life of Newton down to 191 succinct and fascinating pages. The average author, full of himself, would probably write about 1,191 pages and you wouldn't be able to lift the book. This is a masterpiece of time, space, light and color. A reader in motion will tend to remain in motion. It was just great, I read it in one sitting. I hope this starts a trend!
Rating: 
Summary: a newtonian world
Review: I was not immediately aware of the philosophical "dual" between Newton and Decartes re. the force behind planetary and universal motion. Apparently Descartes attributed the motion to vortices which Newton eventually overturned. Time moved slowly back then, and the pace of today can be directly connected to the breakthroughs of Newton!
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Summary: The life of a great genius
Review: I would like to echo the views expressed by some reviewers regarding the prose in this book - I found it rather awkward and the great many quotations in ye olde englishe are head scratchers for me. Nevertheless, the story is interesting. As some reviewers have pointed out, it gives one a brief and concice overview of Newton's life. If you like to read Shakespeare's prose, you'll surely love reading this book.
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Summary: What a Piece of Work is Isaac Newton
Review: I'm not a mathematician; I'm not even much good at arithmetic. Once when trying to count backward from 100 by 7's I started with 97, went to 93, and gave up. Of course I was lying in a hospital bed, but even at my best I wouldn't have gotten far. I tell you this because I approached "Isaac Newton," by James Gleick expecting to read the introduction, pick up a few bits-and-bobs, and bail out. What a surprise to find myself reading even while walking to the bus stop. Thank you, Mr. Gleick for a fascinating biography that doesn't bog down in numbers, but still imparts the scientific information salient to Mr. Newton's life.Isaac Newton was a piece of work. A scientist, but also a student of biblical prophecy; a chemist, but also an alchemist; a public figure as well as something of a recluse; a fountain of learning who refused to publish. Isaac Newton was a man of his times, and Mr. Gleick points out the very interesting paradox that Newton lived in a pre-Newtonian world. Of course he would be filled with contradictions. Even so, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Newton's contemporary and a philosopher/mathematician in his own right who found himself at odds with Newton by independently inventing differential and integral calculus, told the Queen of Prussia that "in mathematics there was all previous history, from the beginning of the world, and then there was Newton; and that Newton's was the better half." If you would like a better understanding of the laws of nature we take for granted, and an understanding of the life and times of the complicated man who formulated them for us, then I recommend this highly readable (and mathematically understandable) biography.
Rating:
Summary: Accessible Biography
Review: It is a pleasant irony that the biography of the author one of the most famously impenetrable mathematical tomes is so accessible. And by accessible, I don't mean simple or demeaning -- it is an enjoyable read of a mere 200 pages. Too often, biographers indulge themselves in long-winded openings, discussing the subjects ancestors, which usually have little to do with the subject at hand. Not with Gleick -- we pretty much jump right in, and start with Mr. Newton himself. Another pleasant diversion from the tradition of biographies of men 400-some years old is the lack of speculation. Like many of this age, or even older, much is not known about Newton, so Gleick intelligently just leaves it out. Other current biographies, most notably "Gallileo's Daughter" fill the gaps in the record with blatant speculation.
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Summary: Revealing the personality of a genius
Review: James Gleick's book Isaac Newton presents the life, the oddities and the great discoveries of the man who set the foundations of modern physics. Gleick has a unique talent for rendering science in layman terms. He preserves and sometimes amazingly expands the scope of the original ideas. When I read his book Chaos I wondered - Gleick seemed too vivid and comprehensible for a scientist and in the same time too penetrating for a writer who is not a professional researcher. Maybe you would like to see what creates the observations described by Newton in his famous laws. Perhaps you have been sometimes puzzled by the enigmatic meaning of your life. Then you should read also Eugene Savov's Theory of Interaction the Simplest Explanation of Everything, James Gleick's Faster and Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order by Steven Strogatz. The explorations and discoveries presented in these three books show a path toward a new knowledge in which the laws of Newton and his genius shine even brighter.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating coverage showing how Newton's genius
Review: James Gleick's previous titles have focused on how ideas and theories can transform perceptions; Isaac Newton narrows the concept even further, providing the story of a scientist who worked to unveil hidden forces in nature. A blend of history, biography and science uses Isaac Newton's own words and unpublished notebooks to cover the underlying importance of his work in physics, optics and calculus. A fascinating coverage showing how Newton's genius and different way of perceiving continues to affect our everyday world.
Rating:
Summary: What a Writer...
Review: Man, can this guy write! I already knew a lot about Newton, so I'm not sure how a newbie will find it, but Gleick's writing just carried me along and I couldn't put it down. I'm not surprised, having read Chaos and his biography of Feynman (if you haven't caught these, you really should). Mr. Gleick, please keep 'em coming..........
Of course, the author did not intend this 200-page book to be a detailed scientific biography - if that's what you want, then Westfall is the place to look.
Rating:
Summary: The Book is So, So
Review: Many of the reviews are very positive but as a professionally trained physicist I do a lot of reading of both history and science books, and was not that impressed. It is okay, no giant errors, but not 5 stars. It is very short and you can quickly learn a lot about Newton by doing a GOOGLE search and reading his biography on line, and skipping this book.
Also, I think it is generally widely know that Newton was a cold fish, ambitious, and turned his back on science when he moved on to government. During his scholarly years he was the most prolific and probably the first real giant in science on our planet in his development of the foundations of mechanics and calculus. He remained as the undisputed leader until Maxwell and Einstein followed with electromagnetic theory and relativity, but not for about 200 years later.
But the present book is neither fish nor fowl. It is part personal, part historical, part scientific. It is attractive and has sketches and drawings, notes, and photographs. The comments about Hooke were interesting and informative, and based on the book one wants to learn more about Hooke. But the book is short, very short to cover all the topics, and 200 pages is not enough - by a long shot. Many biogrphies that go into detail are 400 to 600 pages on average. So I think this is just a gateway book that generates interest in the subject, but alone it is not sufficient.
If you want to learn something about physics and its evolution, and even the place of Newton in all of this, my suggestion is to read something like Brian Greene's new book The Fabric of The Cosmos. It is 500 pages long and gives a nice description of Newtonian physics and its overall context.
Sorry, just 4 stars, or perhaps more fairly just 3. My humble opinion.
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