Books like Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

01

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

James Gleick · Biography

Genius is James Gleick's biography of Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who developed quantum electrodynamics, cracked safes at Los Alamos, played bongo drums in bars, and became the twentieth century's most celebrated scientific personality.

Shares curiosity and physics with Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

02

The Double Helix

James D. Watson · Science

The Double Helix is James Watson's account of the race to determine the structure of DNA, which he and Francis Crick solved in 1953 at Cambridge.

A kindred memoir read.

03

A Mind for Numbers

Barbara Oakley · Self-help

A Mind for Numbers is Barbara Oakley's guide to learning hard subjects effectively, written primarily for students struggling with mathematics and science but drawing on cognitive science principles that apply to any demanding field.

Both dig into learning.

04

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryson · Science

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's attempt to understand the scientific story of everything — from the Big Bang to the emergence of modern humans — by spending three years talking to scientists and reading science history.

A kindred memoir read.

05

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering

Richard Hamming · Science

Richard Hamming's book is based on a course he taught at the Naval Postgraduate School in the late 1980s, after a long career at Bell Labs where he made foundational contributions to information theory and computer science — the Hamming distance, Hamming codes, and various contributions to numerical methods all bear his name.

Shares problem-solving and learning with Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

06

The Physics of Everyday Things

James Kakalios · Science

James Kakalios, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota, takes a simple premise and executes it with unusual discipline: follow a single ordinary person through a single ordinary day, and explain the physics underlying every device and process they encounter.

Shares curiosity and physics with Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!.

07

Big Magic

Elizabeth Gilbert · Self-help

Big Magic is Elizabeth Gilbert's manifesto for living a creative life — not as a professional artistic career but as an orientation toward existence.

Both dig into curiosity.

08

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Walter Isaacson · Biography

Walter Isaacson's Einstein biography is the most widely read account of the physicist's life in English, written after Isaacson was granted access to forty thousand previously sealed documents in the Hebrew University Einstein Archives.

Both dig into nonconformity.

09

Everything Is Figureoutable

Marie Forleo · Self-help

Everything Is Figureoutable is Marie Forleo's argument that almost any problem — personal, professional, creative — becomes solvable once you adopt a foundational belief that a solution exists and that you're capable of finding it.

Both dig into problem-solving.

10

Learn Like a Pro

Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe · Self-help

Learn Like a Pro is a concise, evidence-based guide to studying more effectively, written by Barbara Oakley — the engineer-turned-neuroscientist best known for A Mind for Numbers and the Coursera course "Learning How to Learn" — and Olav Schewe, a student learning consultant.

Both dig into learning.

11

Leonardo da Vinci

Walter Isaacson · Biography

Walter Isaacson's biography of Leonardo da Vinci is built around a simple and provocative claim: Leonardo's genius was not a supernatural gift but an extreme version of a learnable quality — curiosity.

Both dig into curiosity.

12

Limitless

Jim Kwik · Self-help

Limitless is Jim Kwik's account of how he overcame a childhood brain injury and learning difficulties to become a professional memory coach and reading accelerator, and what he learned about cognition along the way.

Both dig into learning.