Rating: 
Summary: Excellent companion to Feynman's own writing
Review: Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, Gleick
Q: "I read both of Feynman's autobiographies! Why would I need to read a biography?"
A: "Because it's awesome."Gleick, firstly, goes far deeper into Feynman's life than Feynman did. Feynman didn't consider his books to be autobiographies; they were "Adventures of a curious character." They were a few hilarious events picked from his long, full life. Gleick's book covers many of the hilarious aspects, but also covers the painful and formative aspects. Also curiously missing from Feynman's books were his science. Feynman wrote about his adventures, Gleick covered the adventures, the disasters, and the science. Brilliant, enthralling reading. Highly recommending to anyone who enjoyed Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Which is, in turn, recommended to anyone who likes funny stories. It reads fast, BTW.)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent companion to Feynman's own writing
Review: Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, Gleick
Q: "I read both of Feynman's autobiographies! Why would I need to read a biography?"
A: "Because it's awesome." Gleick, firstly, goes far deeper into Feynman's life than Feynman did. Feynman didn't consider his books to be autobiographies; they were "Adventures of a curious character." They were a few hilarious events picked from his long, full life. Gleick's book covers many of the hilarious aspects, but also covers the painful and formative aspects. Also curiously missing from Feynman's books were his science. Feynman wrote about his adventures, Gleick covered the adventures, the disasters, and the science. Brilliant, enthralling reading. Highly recommending to anyone who enjoyed Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Which is, in turn, recommended to anyone who likes funny stories. It reads fast, BTW.)
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: 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: Captures Feynman Folklore but Fails to Put Him into Context
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: A Real Genius!
Review: Richard Feynman is certainly one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century,one who belongs to the small group of the chosen few(Einstein,Bohr,Pauli ,among others)and one who fully deserves to be called a genius!His biography by James Gleick is nothing short of excellent:it is very well documented and very well written.For those who want to understand the role played by Feynman in the advancement of modern physics, and especially in the genesis of the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics,this book is a must!It also gives a thorough account of Feynman's life, which makes very good reading ,even if one is not interested in physics...
But a five- hundred- page book will always contain a few paragraphs which are not at the same level as the rest of the book!One such paragraph will be found at page 177,where the author wastes the reader's time in explaining Hans Bethe's mental calculation ability in the "squares-near-fifty trick".Apart from the fact that this sort of ability has nothing to do with genius and is within reach of any intelligent High School student,James Gleick explains it wrongly!He says that"...the difference between two successive squares is always an odd number,the sum of the numbers being squared.That fact,and the fact that 50 is half of 100,gave rise to the squares-near-fifty trick".In fact ,the trick is based on the "remarkable identity" (50+/-a)^2=2500+/-100*a+a^2.Nothing to do with the difference of two successive squares! Fortunately,the book does not contain many passages like this one!
Rating:
Summary: A Real Genius!
Review: Richard Feynman is certainly one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century,one who belongs to the small group of the chosen few(Einstein,Bohr,Pauli ,among others)and one who fully deserves to be called a genius!His biography by James Gleick is nothing short of excellent:it is very well documented and very well written.For those who want to understand the role played by Feynman in the advancement of modern physics, and especially in the genesis of the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics,this book is a must!It also gives a thorough account of Feynman's life, which makes very good reading ,even if one is not interested in physics...
But a five- hundred- page book will always contain a few paragraphs which are not at the same level as the rest of the book!One such paragraph will be found at page 177,where the author wastes the reader's time in explaining Hans Bethe's mental calculation ability in the "squares-near-fifty trick".Apart from the fact that this sort of ability has nothing to do with genius and is within reach of any intelligent High School student,James Gleick explains it wrongly!He says that"...the difference between two successive squares is always an odd number,the sum of the numbers being squared.That fact,and the fact that 50 is half of 100,gave rise to the squares-near-fifty trick".In fact ,the trick is based on the "remarkable identity" (50+/-a)^2=2500+/-100*a+a^2.Nothing to do with the difference of two successive squares! Fortunately,the book does not contain many passages like this one!
Rating: 
Summary: One of the worst books I've ever seen.
Review: This book is so bad that I didn't make it past the first few pages. Another reviewer here agrees with me that this book gets off to a very bad start immediately when he says, "I almost gave it up after the first couple chapters, but finally made it through it all." The problem I have with this book is that the author describes events in Feynman's life in a way that could not possibly allow the reader to get a proper sense of the events. It is like he is combining different events into the same dissusion. Totally distroying the context of the events. Anyone who has read the other great Feynman books that are out there will cringe when they attempt to read this book. If you have never read a book about Feynman, do no start with this one. Start with "Surly you're jokeing Mr. Feynman." This book is legendary for a reason.
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