Imagine a slightly deranged, safe-cracking artiste. Now imagine he decrypted Mayan mathematics, became a Japanese gourmet, an expert on samba music and won the Nobel Prize for physics. Seems odd, right?

In his autobiography, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman": Adventuresof a Curious Character, Feynman tells the story of his life, from Depression-eraNew York where he amazed his friends and terrified his family with his scientificskill, to his college years when he earned his reputation for strange behavior.He then explored a few entrepreneurial ventures (that failed) and got caught upin World War II patriotism, heading to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the UnitedStates was developing the atomic bomb.

Feynman's antics shocked andamused those around him, and the book paints a portrait of an amazing man, histravels and the people his life touched.

This is perhaps the onlyautobiography I have ever enjoyed reading, and I don't see how anyone couldn'tenjoy it, really. The book has a distinct Mark Twain flavor - if The Adventuresof Huckleberry Finn took place more recently, Richard Feynman would have beenHuck. In "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman," you'll read about him setting hishouse on fire, offending the entire Brazilian education system, holding hiswife's hand as tuberculosis claims her and winning the Nobel Prize. Read abouthim changing the world.