Albert Einstein Speaking

This was a thoroughly enjoyable account of Einstein’s life...from childhood to his death. I felt it presented a balanced picture of the man....his work and his personal life...both of which were fraught with controversy.

Skimming of the description has lead me to believe this was going to be something more whimsical and lachrymose, instead this book turned out to be a pleasant surprise, a somewhat fictionalized biography of Albert Einstein, containing only as much whimsy as its character himself did, which is actually no small amount. Einstein is unquestionably a genius, arguably the most significant one of the last century or two. There hasn’t been a mind like his, but what this book particularly succeeded in depicting is his spirit, a stunningly joyous one considering all the vagaries of fate that he has endured in life. The man has had a difficult personal life, fraught with disappointments and adversities, outlived most of his family, left behind places he loved and so on and yet he seems to have maintained a authentically positive outlook and ability to find pleasure and beauty in the world that has seemingly so often gone out of its way to prove the opposite. Maybe there’s something about a certain level of intelligence that allows a person to perceive that sort of mysterious magnificence of all things that can make one genuinely happy. Personally I always thought that level of joy was a privilege of idiots, but maybe it works on the opposite end of the spectrum also. Anyway…this book is lovely. I don’t get into biographies much and probably because I don’t expect them to be as eminently readable and enjoyable as this book was. The narrative was engaging, entertaining (sure, I knew a lot of the facts, but it was still lovely to revisit old knowledge and add new facts to it) and (loved this, my favorite thing and so infrequently found) as each character was introduced more often than not there’s be an accompanying photo, same went for locations. Einstein himself was a fan of photos, so it was perfectly apt. The book deals to a great extent with Einstein’s professional career and accomplishments, but seems to concentrate on a personal perspective, bringing to light the indomitable spirit, charisma and even funniness of the man. The pacifist record alone, the bravery of taking dangerous stands during dangerous times, leading to be investigated by various agencies in Europe and USA, the firm support of equality and antiracism and women rights…makes for a genuinely admirable morally upright individual. If Einstein didn’t exist, he’d be a terrific fictional character invention. I’d read that book too, albeit it possibly with some degree of incredulity. Maybe it would be as great as this one. Thanks Netgalley.

The beauty of this book is in the writing. The author has an incredible way with words that transforms what might otherwise be a simple biography into a work of literary historical fiction. This book is filled with lavish descriptions. It humanizes the great man in a way that nothing I have ever read about him before has ever done. The science is explained in layman’s terms throughout and becomes amazingly accessible. Einstein’s love of Mozart comes up frequently, as does he constant pipe smoking. Albert’s many famous acquaintances are mentioned in this book from Marie Curie to Freud to Winston Churchill to Charlie Chaplin. The book is also filled with pictures of the people who are mentioned in the text. It helps the reader imagine that they are a fly on the wall watching Albert Einstein’s life unfold. If I had one complaint to make about this book it is the fact that it contains almost too much detail. It is certainly well-researched but it felt at times like certain things could have been edited out. Despite the fact that the book is quite short, and can be easily read in a day, there are parts that feel longer than they needed to be.

Thank you to Net Galley and Canongate for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy of this book.

Grade: A

Humanising the Icon

Most of us have heard of Albert Einstein, the famous theoretical physicist who changed the face of modern physics when he developed the Theory of Relativity expressed in the formula E= mc2, dubbed “the world’s most famous equation”. And pretty well most of us are in awe of his amazing intelligence, his intellectuality and his numerous achievements. Normal people like me tend to put people like Einstein up on a pedestal.

“Albert Einstein Speaking” reveals that behind the genius the man himself was only too human. Zionist, committed pacifist, socialist, scientist-philosopher, anti-racist, activist, yachtsman, a man of riddles and a musician with a passion for Mozart, he treated his first wife Mileva very badly. His parenting skills left much to be desired and he had an eye for the ladies even unto his deathbed. In other words, he was a fallible human being just like the rest of us!

To a certain extent, he was always a square peg in a round hole, but what I found endearing was that in spite of being famous and universally well known, he always had time for everyone who wanted a bit of him. He loved to travel and adored his second wife Elsa, who predeceased him. One lesser-known fact is that at one time he came under investigation by the FBI who suspected him of communist leanings, but thankfully that file was destroyed. His theory of relativity opened the way, ultimately, to the development of nuclear fission, but all he did was to endorse a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential development of such bombs and recommending that the United States begin similar research. This led to the Manhattan Project, and Einstein was totally horrified and disgusted with the results. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he became even more of a pacifist than he was before.

These facts are all well-known and well documented in the reams of literature written about Einstein, but this entertaining, well-researched, cradle-to-grave biography of an icon puts over the story in a very readable way. The author uses quite a bit of imaginative licence in the text – in places it reads like a novel, and I could have done without some of the more intimate details. Many of his speeches and sayings are quoted verbatim, and from start, to finish, the book is full of photographs. My favourite by far is one of Einstein wobbling on a bicycle with a huge grin on his face!

R.J. Gadney’s book certainly wasn’t what I was expecting, and I can recommend it as a very enjoyable read. I give it 4 stars.

Bennie Bookworm.

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Though this is a work of fiction it reads like a biography of Albert Einstein's life. I found it enjoyable and a light read. I would recommend it if you are interested in Einstein and his life.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of it.

This is a lightly fictionalized biography of Einstein written in the present tense, with some stylistic weirdness that goes along with that. It dips and dives into other lives along the way, giving us some background on Mileva, on Marie Curie, on Ehrenfest, and political histories of the time. Indeed, the narrative is far more focused on Einstein's politics than on his science or even personal relationships, and it does that part of the story well. In fact, I was quite engrossed by the wide-ranging coverage of WWI, whereas Gadney basically skipped over WWII in a single paragraph. The fictional wrapper of the Beaufort sisters, one of whom misdials him in the first chapter, lends little to the story. They do not show up again until the last chapter (except for 'quotes' at the beginning of the intermediary chapters), and serve little purpose than to humanize Einstein into his stereotypical wise teddy bear image late in his life. The entire story is quite sympathetic to Einstein, stating things that he hopes for and prays for, ie the health and happiness of ones he has once loved, etc, to a degree I find doubtful. He likens Albert's war with Mileva (divorce) to its contemporary WWI, even though we are given little insight into Mileva other than she is sickly, depressed, and a bad housekeeper. I did some serious eye-rolling in all the encounters with women in the text, which were not handled with any compassion. But, well, the political story really works here.

The model of the story is a scrapbook of Einstein's life, laid out in order, and there's a comfortable unevenness to it that makes it charming. I enjoyed the story. But I'm not exactly sure what it added to the wide-ranging cannon that has been developed around Einstein's story.

I got a copy to review from Net Galley.