What Do You Care What Other People Think: Further Adventures of a Curious Character

Richard P. Feynman

This was the final manuscript Feynman worked on before he died in 1988 after a long battle with Cancer. I discovered this book quite serendipitously while on a business trip in Seattle. I had about an hour to kill between meetings and wandered into a bookstore where I picked it up. I was blown away by the frankness, pathos, and humor Feynman was able to communicate in the first part of the book; stories about his growing up, his relationship with his father, and the incredible relationship with his first wife, Arlene, who was dying in the hospital while Feynman was working on the atomic bomb project in Los Alamos. I think we have to be extremely grateful to Feynman for sharing these intimate details with us. The second half of the book is a kind of detective story recounting the adventures of Feynman, as he was the man who solved the riddle of how the space shuttle Challenger exploded. For those of you who are not familiar with Feynman, he won a Noble Prize in physics and (as described in his other autobiographical book, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman) he was a safecracker, bongo drum player, true man of eclectic tastes and values. When they made Feynman they threw away the mold. It is really a privilege to be able to read about him this very moving and personal story.

Review by Len Oppenheim.