One doesn't have to be a genius to make Einstein's story interesting, but a writer has to be skilled to distill its many events, both scientific and personal, into 191 pp. while conveying the sense of a flesh and blood human being. It's my near-constant complaint about biographies; most give you a lot of information about the person without making you feel that you
know the person. Gimbel scores high on my biographo-meter, using judicious details about Einstein's appearance, habits, and opinions to color events many of us are familiar with on the page in black and white: the world-changing papers produced by the Zurich patent clerk, the science wars over relativity and quantum mechanics, and Einstein's ambivalence over Judaism, Zionism, and pacifism. I can't say whether Gimbel's explanations of Einstein's theories are entirely apt, but they are certainly as clearly written as others I've read for the non-scientist, and admirably concise.
