J. Robert Oppenheimer. A Life, Abraham Pais (ISBN 9780195327120, Oxford University Press)

With the Oppenheimer movie coming out I decided to read a biography first. I didn’t have the one from Kai Bird on which the movie is based (has been rectified in the mean time) but I did have 3 other books on Oppenheimer patiently lying in the library waiting to be read. After googling a bit I decided to go for the one from Abraham Pais first. Pais was a leading physicist in his day a and a member of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study while Oppenheimer was its director so he had a lot of first hand knowledge about Oppenheimer. Pais also wrote the acclaimed Einstein biography ‘Subtle is the Lord’ which I liked very much. More reasons to go for this book first. Unfortunately Pais passed away in 2000 before he could finish the book. The last quarter of the book about the hearings and the aftermath were written by Robert Crease. I have to say I have mixed feelings about the book. It is well researched and full of first hand knowledge and even long text passages from correspondence of Oppenheimer and others. This makes for a fragmented style and reading experience. It is a bit like watching a documentary where many people are interviewed about the topic. The result is a nuanced book packed with information focusing for 80% of the pages on the period after the war starting with his appointment as director of the Institute for Advanced Study. The history of the Institute also take up quite a number of pages. I liked reading the book and it turned out to prepare me well for watching the movie but I consider the book more suitable for readers with a special interest in Oppenheimer, physics and the Institute. If you are mainly interested in Oppenheimer the man then book from Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin is a better choice.