Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman and Ralph Leighton

Adventures of a Curious Character

About in short

This is a short and very entertaining book about Richard Feynmann and mostly his life more or less outside physics.

The book consists of short stories (I’d call them ethides) of different times of his life and very nicely shows that having real fun is crucial to his life and somehow he provokes it time to time.

Gained

Boldness

My biggest gain from this book is the boldness of the man - he might not know how to do the random stuff (as drawing, drumming or Japanese), but he takes the time, effort and learns it, while still having fun. And that time by time leads him to really nice places and results.

Enjoy the time you have, do bold stuff and eventually great things will happen to you!

Curiosity and joy

I’m also quite infected with the joy and curiosity he has about life and his surroundings. Who else would play with ants, sniff books or have a laboratory as a kid? The man just loves puzzles!

He isn’t afraid to bet, but as a very rational and smart fellow, there is stuff he doesn’t support or believe in (as in, drinking, narcotics and gambling) mostly because they threaten him to damage his ability to think (and thinking he enjoys very much).

Richard Feynmann definitely is my hero - and open minded genius, that is not afraid to try out and play with whatever he does not understand. And have fun and be happy while doing it. (Lots of it!)

Quote

A quote that matches with Rationality book:

So I have just one wish for you - the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of (scientific) integrity I have described (repeatable results, that are taken seriously not just because they are the way you want them to be), and where you do not feel pushed by a need to maintain your position in the organization or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.