Book Review: Einstein

The challenge of capturing the life of Albert Einstein in one book tickled my curiousity, and forced me without hesitation to buy the book. In fact, the challenge of doing Einstein, or even his biography justice in a simple review still stands, and stands tall.
Walter Isaacson presents a true masterpiece and a unique style in collecting this treasure of a book. Having written “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” previously, he sure had the credentials, and may I say, lived up to the challenge.
Walter was successful, with his unmatched narrative skills, in perserving Einstein’s stature, while also bringing to life Einstein the human being and scientist alike. With the advantage of recently uncovered historical detail, he maintained a significant level of scientific accuracy along with very human revelations about Einstein’s life.
He disclosed amazing stories of childhood, such as the fact that Albert did not speak words until he was 2, or the fact that he did not excel at subjects pertaining to language and arts. Always thinking miles away from the box, Isaacson describes how Albert always asked the wrong questions, or so it was assumed.

 
Stories of his relationships, such as those in which Einstein would take his wife on a romantic outing, which only consisted of a trip to the mountain to sit together and solve equations, were ones you know you would only read of in Albert’s life. The comprehensive presentation Walter reviews Einstein’s political and philisophical views make you think it’s no wonder President Roosevelt took his advice preceeding the World War.
Einstein was granted American Citizenship in 1940, and was sure to mention what bliss the Americans were in for being able to express without the pressure of a social barrier.
After a life for the history books, and dedication to science, to universe and to humanity until death, it does not strike you with surprise that they removed his brain during his autopsy without consent, in wishful hope of service to neuro science.
On a final note, walking down one of the streets of Manhattan, I read a sign, that summarizes the book and gives hope to our young ones. It read : “As a student, he was no Einstein”. Quite simply, his name is undoubtedly synonymous with the word “Genius”.

Book Review: The Autobiography of Malcom X

This story was filled with irony, and by this story i mean me actually reading and reviewing this book. I like irony, I am a sarcastic person myself. The fact that I initially picked this book off the shelf because Malcom X‘s picture on the cover looks like actor Denzel Washington makes me grin.
The real story at hand is of a brave man who walked in danger, for he had taken the suffering of a suppressed people, and made it a suffering of his own. A man who was unreservedly comitted to liberating the black man, who had been trained to conceal his real thoughts as a mere matter of survival. A man who took the matter of freeing the black man, rather than integrating him into a society that crushed him and then penelized him for not being able to stand up.
I like to devide Malcom X’s life into two major parts. His childhood troubles, jail and joining the Nation of Islam into the first part, and his travel to Makkah for Hajj into the second. Although, first part is threefold the second part in duration, my biased eyes and heart naturally leant towards the second.
After a troubled childhood, teenagehood of crime and jail, Malcom finally joined the Nation of Islam – which is not by any means related to true Islam. The X denotes freedom of the last name given to him by the white slave master of his grandfather, and every member of the nation was given that X. 
A seperation from the nation however, led Malcom to seek the real truth of Islam, and travel to Makkah, where he beautifully describes the signs of God in form of warmth and brotherhood of the Muslims, and the true colorblindness of Islam. Despite a comic note of trouble at the customs office of the Jeddah airport – even all the way back in 1964 -, his descriptions made me doubt my sense of appreciation of things we take for granted in this holy land. His amusement with everyone eating and drinking out of the same plates and cups, sitting on the same rug and sleeping in the same room, being of all colors and races in the context of America’s bold racism were like a page out of National Geographic as he wold describe. What he believed could not exist in America, existed in front of his bare eyes. He did not catch me more than when he articulated in one word that feeling I get when I first see the Ka’aba : Numbness. To this day, I haven’t read or heard a better description.
Finally, he caught my eye and my centers of logic with yet another wise quote, after seeing America’s race troubles, and sensing a sound solution in further study of true Islam, when he said: All Islam needs is a PR firm.
Malcom X was assasined in 1965 at the age of forty, which only carries you think about what he accomplished in a lifetime shorter than that given to most. One wonders what he could have done had God willed and lengthen his life. Truly, a man of the people.