James Gleick's first success as _Chaos: Making a New Science_. He may be known even better for _Genius_ his biography of Richard P. Feynman.

My first read of _Genius_ was so compelling that my marginalia was limited to straight lines noting text. I had not much to add. The work was thorough, complete, correct (afik), engaging, honest, and direct. I really appreciated the bibliographies, both the general list and the inventory of Feynman's own academic publications.

James Gleick’s biography begins by correcting some of the myths about Feynman. Feynman created some of them himself, of course. Overall, the book is yet another tribute. Gleick fills in the narrative that Feynman left out of the two popularizations of his life, _Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman_ and _What Do You Care What Other People Think?_ Underlying and beyond the stories Gleick explains the physics, as best as can be done, in colloquial English. Relevant here is the fact that just as the Pythagorean Theorem can be shown synthetically and analytically, the truths in quantum mechanics can be expressed with three different methods: wave equations, statistical equations, and Feynman path integrals. Gleick devotes considerable effort to explaining Feynman’s work, given that the intended audience is people who like physics, but really do not understand it.

I read both of the soft Feynman autobiographies and _The Character of Physical Law_ and I have both the _Easy_ and _Not-So-Easy Pieces_. I often recommend and cite "Cargo Cult Science." I was granted a literary award for a biography of Newton's tenure as warden and master of the Royal Mint. Based on that research, I placed perhaps a dozen reviews of Thomas Levenson's _Newton and the Counterfeiter_. And I am not shy. But I had nothing to add to Gleick's work. You know when you are standing next to someone a head taller than you.

Gleick's most recent book is _The Information
A History, a Theory, a Flood_.