Rating: 
Summary: wonderful book by a great writer
Review: Gleick is both a knowlegable scientist and a masterly storyteller. This book is a classic about one of the most fascinating scientists ever. A must read for any aspiring scientist or anyone interested in science
Rating: 
Summary: mediocre
Review: Gleick's biography of Feynman is certainly palatable for even non-techical readers... however, if you're interested in Feynman as a person, you're far better off reading it in Feynman's words: "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman"... not only was that book much funnier and an immense joy to read, but you get a much better feel for a lot of the anecdotes that are relayed again in Gleick's book. If you're interested in learning about the history of QED and Feynman's hand in its development, this book is a nice teaser, but it really doesn't go into much depth. It focuses too much on the shallow rivalries between the physicists of that time, without really making clear what the developments were or how they were developed.
Rating:
Summary: Stale biography of a brilliant man.
Review: How do you understand a true genius ? This books' attempt left me a bit closer, but still rather unsatisfied. I read the book a couple of years ago, and found it enlightening on the beauty of maths, but picking it up again recently I found it less pleasing. I don't think the author captured the excitment of discovery well. The chapters on the Manhatten Project are excellent though.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid Bio
Review: I actually thought Gleick did a fairly decent job of conveying how Feynman's interest in physics developed, how he worked, and how he contributed to the development of science. His relationship with Freeman Dyson and how Dyson helped bring Feynman's QED theory to the physics world is a good example. As other's have pointed out, the book does gloss over the last few decades of Feynam's life, which is unfortunate. Only a couple of chapters cover the years after Feynam's nobel prize.
Its when Gleick's attempting to explain quantum mechanics and Feynman's work in physics that he tends to get into the most trouble. Its very technical, esoteric stuff, and Gleick's expanations just seem incomplete or impossible to follow. Since they often go on for pages, this makes for some difficult reading.
Gleick would have been better off keeping his explanations of the science to a very general level, I think. This is not to say that avoid the science completely, not at all. Its just that a truely deep, thorough explanation of this stuff would require a book in itself. Let the reader know why Feynman's theories on QED were important, how it changed the way phsyicists thought about this stuff, that Feynaman's diagrams were a great scientific tool. Leave it to other books (like those by John Griggon) to explain things further, to get into the nuts and bolts of it, where they can do it justice.
Rating: 
Summary: Spend your money on Feynman's own books instead
Review: I almost stopped reading this book after the first few chapters- very dry reading, and the author repeatedly goes for 2-3 pages without even mentioning Feynman, instead going off on a tangent about some other person involved with quantum theory. Not a good thing to do in a biography. You might as well just stick to Feynman's own books, "Surely You're Joking" and "What Do You Care", rather than pay to read this guy paraphrasing them both in this book. A few different anecdotes here and there, but not many. Often times you can't tell if Gleick is quoting something Feynman said himself, or some other person did, without turning to the notes in the back.
Rating:
Summary: Good Work by J Gleick
Review: I grab this book once I saw it on the book shelf years ago. Partly because I am always fascinated by the personality of RPF. After reading the book I can say that I look forward for other works by Gleick. This is simply the best biography on RPF. It potrays the life and time of RPF, highlighting a lot milestone in the modern science in the process. Believe me , you'd want to know RPF in person once you finish reading this.
Rating: 
Summary: Ho-hum...
Review: I read Genius for a college literature course. I thought the book was pretty boring. Some of the personal stories of Richard Feynman were interesting, but there were very few of them compaired to the remainder of the book. Other parts were intensely boring. Most of the book contained theories of physics. A pretty silly concept considering this is a biography!
Overall I'd say this book was rather pointless. If you're a physicist or fan of physics (I prefer biology, myself) go ahead and read it. Otherwise, I would not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great, Though a Lot Turns Up Missing
Review: If getting people to turn pages was the only measure of a writer, Gleick would be at the top of his craft; I ripped through this book in 3 days (and likewise found Chaos very compelling). But, alas, there are other considerations and for me, the most curious thing about this book is the degree to which the author sets the table and serves a burning meal then leaves most the courses half eaten. For instance, you would think from the title, that you were also in for a discourse on the concept and/or practice of genius. Instead, predictable anecdotal information comes along (more often than not reinforcing the cliche rather than an individual experience of genius) and then, when the author decides to take up the topic, he makes a few remarks about the geneology of the concept, tries to talk about Mozart in a way that borders on hamhanded (while it also produced an unfortunate flashback to surely one of the most banal treatises on genius: Amadeus) and then after a few other observations, he moves on. The title seems to promise the cliche, but the wonderful quixotic image that emerges from the long course of Feynman's life is rather the retreat of the concept. As the most likely Einstein of his generation, Feynman ended up making significant contributions, but certainly fell far short of the previous generation's measure of genius: general relativity. Instead whole hordes of people pushed the ball forward little by little into the quantum age and Feynman ironically became one of the ones who defied the belief in a grail that would unlock all the secrets. The other part that seemed truly neglected was the final scene when Feynman served on the Challenger committee (shortly before his death). Gleick leaves the only commentary on his role to Freeman Dyson, despite the fact that the scene is loaded with possibilities: Feynman setting aside the sheaths of a billion dollar, protected industry to reveal, through a failed experiment that an 8 year old could have performed, the culprit in what can only be called murder. To his credit, Gleick does manage to allow a real person to emerge from behind the cliches. It's a remarkable reversal that in the beginning Feynman seems like a crude, cliche of a person who is going to set the world on fire, and at the end, though he didn't end up singlehandedly rewriting his realm of science, he did end up a wise, caustic, fearless contrarian. Oppenheimer once said that it would take a modern Sophocles to write the history of the dawning of the quantum era. Gleick sets the scene but spares a lot of the drama, even though it seems like he secretly understands it all. Still a very powerful read.
Rating:
Summary: The life and times of a " half buffoon , half genius "
Review: James Gleick's life of Feynman comes highly recommended to anyone concerned with the scholarship of safe-cracking , impromptu Brazilian samba ensembles and the fineries of quantum electrodynamics . Space shuttle design and the Manhattan Project are also included , so that no critic can claim in any seriousness that Feynman lacked balanced life-experience. This book is highly and competently researched ( 70-odd pages devoted to notes , acknowledgements and bibliography ) but it is no mere archive - there is a sense of presence in Gleick's narrative which , at times , borders on the voyeuristic (see , for example , the chapters detailing the correspondence between Feynman and his first wife Arline while he , shrouded in systematic censorship and effectively isolated , worked on the Bomb and she died slowly of consumption.) His account of Feynman's physics is similarly uncanny, making esoteric and , dare I say it , deep , theoretical material accessible to non-specialists . Perhaps this success in transmitting his ideas in a second-hand fashion is due to some aspect of the nature of Feynman's thinking - he was what might be called a ' freehand ' theoretician , prepared to step outside the realm of the accepted processes in order to see new ways of achieving old results , and thus to reconfigure the family-tree of physics and open new branches of inquiry . His closest rival for much of his career , Julian Schwinger , also comes across as his antithesis - Gleick , in any case , would have us believe in two incompatible minds , in Feynman the intuitive doodler and Schwinger the rigorous draftsman , both working to slice the same pie but with different mental utensils , one with a machete and the other with a laser . This was an academic showdown of the first order and one of the more compelling themes in the book . Compiling the life of an arch-scientist with a penchant for percussion and amateur safe-cracking is no mean feat . Feynman was enigmatic as an individual , to say the least , but this book goes! a lot of the way to answering , in the positive , the old freshman question " IS FEYNMAN HUMAN ? "
Rating:
Summary: not recommended
Review: no no no... i am not in a particularly bad mood. it is a plain fact that the book is neither based on extensive reseach or that it is well written. gleick is known for his bestseller ``chaos: making a new science''. it was a good book. but that does not mean (of course) this book, too, is good. gleick traces what was already presented in ``surely, you're joking, mr. feynman'' and its sequel. in effect, he not only traces them, he simply repeats them (in longer sentences). a much better biography is jagdish mehra's.
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