Steeped in Science, Submersed in Story

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Klein's account of his discussions with these leading natural and social scientists. I came out thinking that there was no real theme, just an account of scientists chatting about what's important to them, or maybe not so important but fun.

Klein was aware of his own role in these conversations, steering them, giving us introductions to them, and ultimately, of course, enjoying some of them much more than others. And since I didn't know at the outset that Klein lived in Germany (it's prepublication, an ebook, no author bio at the beginning), I didn't understand all the little digs at Germany until about halfway through. It turns out that's scientist humor. Anyway, with Klein's role acknowledged, I felt they were great interview reads, allowing us to get a feel for the personalities of these famous scientists and the nature of the work they do.

The scientists have a huge range of outlooks and interests. A couple of them were clearly more, ummm, aware of their own greatness than I was comfortable with, but Klein didn't have to say it. The rest were surprisingly humble. Science really is a collaborative field, and these folks realize that. Most of them have figured out how to get along with people and how to talk to people. That's part of why they're famous.

So there's no real unifying theme, but I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the philosophy of science, or science and ethics especially. When discussing their lives and influences, many of the interview subjects circled around those questions. Highly recommended overall.

I got a free copy of this from Net Galley.