By all accounts, physicist Richard Feynman was a remarkable guy: thoroughly likable, utterly brilliant, modestly plain-spoken, and gifted with a rare ability to explain complicated things clearly. His exploits included winning a Nobel Prize; playing the bongo drums in a ballet; working on the Manhattan Project, where he used to break into his colleagues' safes to highlight problems with security; and serving on the committee investigating the Challenger accident, where he famously dunked one of the shuttle's O-rings into his glass of ice water to prove that it turned brittle in the cold.

I adored Feynman's books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, which were collections of anecdotes from his life, as told to and transcribed by a friend of his. So I was interested to read this collection of his letters, compiled by his daughter many years after his death, but I did expect that it might be a bit dry, and likely more of historical interest than human interest. Well, I am delighted to report that I was completely wrong about that. These letters are warm and charming and often laugh-out-loud funny. They're also full of joy -- in physics, in teaching, in learning, and in family -- and contain some beautiful insights into the nature of what it's like to do science, particularly the way in which all scientific knowledge is grounded in doubt. A few of them are also very moving, especially his correspondence with his first wife, who was ill when they married and who died tragically young.

If I am absolutely honest, I have to confess that I am a little bit in love with Richard Feynman. Possibly I have been since I first read Surely You're Joking back in my late teens, but this collection has quite cemented it. Which is perhaps a little embarrassing, but I can at least take consolation in the fact that, based on his affable reply to a woman who wrote to say she'd fallen in love with him after seeing him on Nova, he would have responded with good grace. ( )

This is raw Feynman - Feynman as a rational, brilliant, amusing, and genial man, revealed through letters to his family, to supporting fans, and to other physicists. In all his facets, Richard Feynman was a great person. The introductions and occasional notes by his daughter are immensely helpful too.

The early letters between him and his first wife are as heartbreaking as the later ones are wry, amusing, and wise. What a man!

A selection of letters chosen by his close family. An insight into his private personality and key events in his life.

Ranging from a correspondence with a young and dying wife, being torn between doing what she is asking and doing what is best for her, to light hearted asides and truly inspirational responses to members of the public after he achieved his celebrated status as Nobel prize winner.

Inspirational, heart warming, full of humour. ( )

This collection of personal letters written over the lifetime of Richard Feynman was moving and inspiring. From his early letters to his first wife, dying in a hospital near Los Alamos where he was working during WWII, to the final letter in the book, written to a parent concerned over his bright child, Feynman's kindness and humor were touching and apparent. The letters were collected by his daughter, Michelle, and therefore are shown through a veil of love, but I feel this adds, not detracts. ( )