Liked this book better when I first read it, back when it was new. The first half, more or less, is autobiographical, and quite delightful; the second half is articles/essays on a variety of topics, and kinda preachy, even though I generally agree with Dyson’s perspective. The result is that the books gets progressively more difficult to read. At least for me.
That said, there are fascinating portraits of Feynman, Bethe, Teller, and Oppenheimer in here, all of whom Dyson counted as friends, and of the projects Dyson worked on with those and others. The author presents himself as sort of a technician, but perhaps it’s the contrast with his brilliant colleagues.
This short review was originally published on LibraryThing.