Rating: 
Summary: As refreshing as a nice, cold Coca Cola
Review: Einstein's brain. It sounds so vulgar doesn't it? But nonetheless, Michael Paterniti charges forward and writes a book about what is the most interesting (and true) cross-country road trip ever made.The hero, Mike, is a washed up slacker of a journalist with a bad case of writer's block. He enjoys telling stories, one of his favorites being that the man who preformed Einstein's autopsy stole his brain. When he discovers that it's true...well let's just say his writer's block ended. Enter Dr. Thomas Harvey, an aging, balding, overweight man who has a killer wit and Einstein's brain in a cookie jar in his closet. It's during a long silence between the two on a phone conversation that Dr. Harvey spouts, "I need to go to California." To which Mike responds, "I'll drive you." Two men on a cross-country trip in a Buick Skylark with Einstein's brain in the trunk...the situation screams for a sense of humor. Mike and Dr. Harvey respond with everything they have. The character's opposite personalities bump along the 3,000 miles in constantly interesting and new situations. Together, and with the swiss cheesed remnants of Einstein, they visit Las Vegas, the famed Cement Museum, and Dr. Harvey's old roommates, among other sites. Paterniti's play with words adds to the effect. As Mike quotes, "As soon as my head hit my pillow, I was wide awake." It's a bold and different style, which mixes with the book perfectly. The book is a laugh fest. But it's also an explanation on physics, a biography on the living Einstein, an inside look on medicine and business and a road trip between two normal guys who just happen to have something incredible siting in a Tupperware container on the back seat.
Rating: 
Summary: Honey, I have to go the west coast with an old man.
Review: Some of the reviewers have missed the point. This is a book about THE BRAIN, but also about age, life, dreams, and continuity. It's a neat little book that says more than it says. and means more than it says. A great gift, and a thought provoking ride across a country and time.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: I loved this book! It's very unique, funny, interesting... Everyone can relate to traveling and stopping to visit various relatives or friends or sites and ending up feeling like you're in the Twilight Zone or something with these weird situations and people. I loved the parts of the book where they visit William Burroughs, the Greek grandma with the hots for Harvey, the "Garden of Eden" attraction in Kansas, etc. They are hilarious. I also loved all the parts about the author's relationship with his significant other- Sara. I wished this book was longer.
Rating:
Summary: The best quirky book that I've read in a long time.
Review: I can't say much more than a lot of the stuff that other reviewers have already said. But the one thing that made this book one of the most fascinating things that I have read recently was the descriptions of the eccentric folks that comprised the slice of humanity that Paterniti met. People who cause me to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see for the first time in my life a perfectly normal person. The narrative style, snippets of conversation, and rambling style all made this book a pleasure to read. Although most of the book centered on the cross-country drive, I did not really think that this book was a "road" book. Then again, I started this book not knowing what to think. Then again, I ended the book not knowing what to think either. The one thing that I find unusual is that it seems like people view Doctor Harvey as either a quack interferring with real science or the possessor of a holy relic. My feeling is that if Doctor Harvey did not shoplift Einstein's grey matter, then it would have been cremated along with the rest of Albert, so Doctor Harvey by not surrendering the brain to authorities is not doing anything worse than what would have happened if the brain were toasted in the first place. And the reverence that some hold for the brain also strikes me as unusual -- although I admire Einstein, I personally have as much interest in seeing his brain as I do in seeing Millard Fillmore's pancreas.
Rating: 
Summary: He loves the criminally insane!
Review: I would of enjoyed reading at least one paragraph that wasn't overly written. Sometimes you get a little upset and scream "Just say it, damnit!". This book was pretty upsetting for me - he ends up idolizing this cretin of a pathologist who stole Einstien's brain for no other purpose than the limelight. He then refused to return it to the family, or hand it over to an institution for proper research. Instead this pathological country bumbkin keeps it in his basement in a box, giving out pieces to those who praise him for this grisly deed. Dr. Harvey is a jerk extraordinaire, in my book easily one of the top ten jerks of all time. Yet the writer adores him, so much that when the bumbling pathologist leaves the brain (in tupperware, to wit) in the back seat of the rental car he does not promptly return it to the family or authorities; instead he gives it back to the absent minded fool who took it. You really have to wonder... If this want-to-be writer had spent more time thinking about the subject matter than trying to eloquently express everything from a gas-stop to indigestion, this book could have been much better. Perhaps even an expose of the man most deservedly removed of his medical license, Dr. Harvey. Unfotunately the writer was obsessed with his own fame, a true brother of Harvey. Two stars for the chronicle, but that's all you get.
Rating: 
Summary: Humor or travelogue or biography or screenplay?
Review: What Paterniti is able to accomplish in this story is a short travel adventure across the vast American psyche. Of course, he also manages to get sidetracked by the life and times of Mr. Albert and his brain's handler, Dr. Harvey. As the story evolves I began to wonder that this is a story about the author's trip and NOT about Einstein's brain. But then I am struck with the realization that Paterniti is not only a traveler but also a fan of the brain and Dr. Harvey. It is at this point that I felt that Paterniti lost a bit of credibility in my book.
Rating:
Summary: Also by Michael Paterniti
Review: The book is wonderful. The scientist Harvey and the brain provide the context for Paterniti's introspection. By the way, you MUST read "The Last Meal", by Michael Paterniti, in the May 1998 Esquire Magazine. It's an essay about French President Francois Mitterand's last meal. A moving essay (one of the best I've ever read) and one of the reasons I bought "Driving..."
Rating:
Summary: Brain Candy! This Book Delighted Me!
Review: I absolultey recommend this book! Mr. Paterniti tells a hillarious story of driving across the United States with the man who did the autopsy on Albert Einstein, and KEPT HIS BRAIN! The author has a wonderful sense of humor which is a good thing, because he seems to attract strange people to him along the trip. He'll suddenly blurt out "I have Einstein's brain in the trunk" to almost any stranger along the trip. The responses that ensue are terrific! I giggled and laughed heartily while reading this book. It's a super way to spend some free time!
Rating:
Summary: Mind on the Move
Review: I'm a physiological psychologist (brain-behavior relationships) by profession and something of an amateur historian. Thus, this book, because of its "neural connections" and because of its occasional biographical revelations of Einstein, appealed immensely to me. Also, as someone who mainly reads for pleasure in the 15-30 minutes before I fall asleep, the brief length appealed to me. At any rate, I found this little work highly entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Left undone
Review: Even with the relatively short amount of words used in this book, I couldn't keep interested. The short quips about relativity are the same old textbook stuff that you read and re-read in countless other more entertaining books on Einstein. After reading 100 pages into this book, the intrigue of Einstein's brain became less and less. Afterall, it was the man that was extraordinary, not his anatomy.
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