Rating: 
Summary: Pretentious and dull
Review: The concept of driving cross-country with Einstein's brain seems like it would be a fabulous kernel to wrap a story around. I'm sure that's what the publisher thought and all those (like me) who bought the book to make it a NY Times Bestseller. However I was extremely disappointed by the book. It fails as a cross-country travelogue, it fails as a biography of Einstein, and it fails as a story about Harvey, the pathologist who absconded with Einstein's brain for all these years. Mr. Paterniti stretches to make the relatively uneventful trip engaging at all. Instead Mr. Paterniti spends most of the time making quasi-philosophical conjectures based on his very superficial knowledge of physics. His prose style is also very bloated and pretentious. E.g. "We simmer for a while, chitchatting the blubber." because chewing the fat is far too colloquial. Mr. Paterniti spends more time showing off his vocabulary and metaphor making skills, then actually weaving a story with anything meaningful to say. He is the worst kind of writer, one who can write well but has nothing to say. The book could have been salvaged several times, but Mr. Paterniti fails in the most important trait for a writer. He lacks honesty. I feel often that Paterniti is filtering the story through his lens; telling the story so he doesn't have to expose any of his own faults or explore his own psyche. He briefly mentions his failing relationship with his girlfriend, but doesn't bother to explore that topic. There is obvious tension between Harvey and Paterniti, but once again this gets glossed-over too. The book isn't a total waste, it just could have been executed much better. Save your nickels and get the book from your library. That way you won't lose anything when you stop reading half way through.
Rating:
Summary: How I envied the formaldehyde-soaked brain
Review: I needn't waste the reader's time, as has Paterniti, by expounding at great length upon a simple kernel of thesis. I found Paterniti's prose style to be painfully affected. It meandered clumsily through a tangle of disconnected self-musings that so permeated the book, that what promised to be an inherently gripping narrative sank into oblivion. Perhaps most irksome, Paterniti was too busy obsessing about his failure to do anything with life, that he also failed to learn any physics. If one is going to wax philosophical regarding the implications of a great physical theory, one ought to go to the trouble to understand even the basics. In short, reading this book made me wish my brain was the one in the jar.
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Road Trip
Review: I have always liked books on journeys, and road trips. Part of the reason, perhaps, comes from the fact that I love the miles and miles of highways in America. I have since come back from America to my home country of Singapore but my love for America has not ended. I have several books on journeys. This one is by far the strangest and comical one. I enjoyed every page of it. Einstein was a genius beyond his time. It was a pity that his brain was not properly preserved. I was hoping that someday, his brain may be transplanted into a human and his work on relativity can continue. But, from the descriptions in this book, it seems like with every passing day, the chances of getting a good sample of the brain for restoration gets slimmer. It's disheartening to hear of the slipshod manner with which the brain of the greatest scientist ever was treated. I hope that other great minds of this day can be accorded much more respect and reverence. Overall, this book is a great read. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Stranger than fiction
Review: Part road-trip novel, part biography of Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed the autopsy of Albert Einstein, this book has a you-have-to-read-it-to-believe-it feel. Michael Paterniti approached Dr. Harvey because of rumors that Harvey kept parts of Einstein's brain. Sure enough, Harvey did have the brain pieces floating in formaldehyde, and before you know it, the two of them are driving to California (with the brain) to see Einstein's granddaughter. There are some hilarious moments (such as a side trip to a high school in San Jose) and poignant moments at the end of the journey, but I was a little disappointed because there wasn't enough closure. For me, it remained a bizarre little journey.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining Despite the Author
Review: Since this book is (...) it is appropriate that I only read it while taking one. While we are accustomed to reading anything in regards to Albert Einstein with an air of reverence, the author of this book, thanks to the fact that he has Einstein's brain in pieces in a jar, has found this has given him a great sense of contempt. So, if you want to read every embarrasing aspect of Albert Einstein's personal life that can be discovered, written with an air of contempt - then this is the book for you! In contrast, the author also presents details of his own utterly boorish life as, I guess, the standard Einstein fell short of. So, if contrary to what they say, contempt breeds familiarity, then here it is the book in which to find that familiarity. I thank the author for the painstaking research into Einstein's personal life that he has obviously done, however, which although written with an air of contempt, need not be read with one. I read this book with a sense of horror at the disrespect shown towards the great man's brain, which I must admit is what prompted me to purchase this book in the first place. I was startled to discover that Einstein and his family had no idea the brain would be removed as well, for the purposes, no doubt, of turning a quick buck or even a fortune off it. So, the book remains entertaining in this respect - despite the author who, of course, is the only one to finally find a way to turn a quick buck off it - as a good modern horror story, despite true.
Rating:
Summary: Truth is Stranger than Fiction - Great Writing
Review: Michael Paterniti's ability to describe everyday life is amazing - he really has a gift for writing. This book works on many levels. It goes in and out between describing details of Einstein's past life and the strange but true story of his brain today contained in a Tupperware container, in the posession of Harvey. The fact that his brain was kept by a retired pathologist in his home for the past 50 years is in itself extremely interesting. But the best surprise I found in this book was the author's gift of observations - he has a very creative style of prose, very descriptive and intelligent. I will look forward to reading his future books.
Rating:
Summary: it's a keeper.
Review: Most books i give away as soon as i've finished reading them, and a very few i want to keep; this is one of the latter. i LOVED this book. never heard of paterniti before (i don't read magazines), and i can't recall where i heard of this book, but it sounded quirky enough to be interesting, so i went online to order it. way more than interesting, it is very satisfying on many levels; part documentary, part travel book, part love story, and extremely engaging. and, i think, quite film-worthy...I WANNA SEE THE MOVIE! i can already imagine the cee-mint garden, and i will have plenty of kleenex to get me through Lily singing her sad farewell in the japanese karaoke lounge.
Rating:
Summary: Life and Brain...
Review: This is a good book that not only is about Einstine but is about looking at life. Enjoy this story on life, the road, and a regular size brain.
Rating:
Summary: Groovy tale of two men, a brain, and the women who love them
Review: I'm a huge fan of Paterniti, whose style I know and appreciate from his writing in *Esquire*. The book doesn't disappoint--quirky yet sensitive, nonfiction but filled with storytelling. The details on Einstein himself were plentiful, and it was the good stuff, not just his "amazing genius" but who he was and why people are still so fascinated. Yet this book is not really about "Big Al." It's about two guys, an elderly owner of Einstein's brain (which he keeps in Tupperware in the trunk of the car!) and a writer flailing around in confusion ("angst" would be exaggerating) about his life, driving across country together. If you enjoy stories that juxtapose love and science, independence and longing, humor and loneliness, you'll love this one.
Rating:
Summary: errol morris meets jack kerouac
Review: This is a great book, a great retelling of a calculatedly absurd adventure, and a great reflection on the complicated icon that Einstein has become for our popular culture. I think other reviewers may have been disappointed in it as a "story" because the author declined to force a climax or particular conclusion into it. That's often the difference between reality and our fictionalization of it though, and I don't take anything away from Paterniti for offering his insights and (largely) leaving readers to draw their own conclusions. Really, forcing as richly weird and rewardingly absurd a set of scenarios as this book presents into a single "conclusion" of any sort would tragically diminish the pleasure and insight available from it. Much better to tell the tale, offer your reflections and step back. On that level, I found Driving Mr. Albert rewarding. What does it mean for Einstein, the ultimate symbol of this century's faith in reason and science, to be reduced to a macabre fetish-object or collector's item? I've got a mint Ty Cobb rookie card... I've got a finger bone from John The Baptist... I've got Einstein's hypothalmus in a tupperware cup... Beautiful, visceral, twisted, complicated, sad and way, way, way too true.
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