Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is an edited collection of reminiscences by Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. It expounds upon his human side with a number of personal and mostly humorous anecdotes, detailing everything from his forays into hypnotism to his fascination with safe-cracking and his fondness for topless bars, as well as more serious topics such as the development of the atomic bomb and the death from tuberculosis of Feynman's first wife, Arline Greenbaum.

The anecdotes were edited from taped conversations Feynman had with his close friend and drumming partner, Ralph Leighton. Its surprise success, selling more than 500,000 copies, led to a sequel entitled What Do You Care What Other People Think?, also taken from Leighton's taped conversations.

Publication data

• Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character, Richard Feynman, Ralph Leighton (contributor), Edward Hutchings (editor), 1985, W W Norton, ISBN 0-393-01921-7, 1997 paperback: ISBN 0393316041, 2002 Blackstone Audiobooks unabridged audio cassette: ISBN 0786122188

1985 books | Autobiographies