Foto dell'autore

R.J. Gadney

Autore di Albert Einstein Speaking

3 opere 40 membri 4 recensioni

Sull'Autore

Comprende il nome: Р. Дж. Гэдни

Opere di R.J. Gadney

Etichette

Informazioni generali

Non ci sono ancora dati nella Conoscenza comune per questo autore. Puoi aiutarci.

Utenti

Recensioni

From a wrong number to a friendship that would impact both their lives,Albert Einstein Speaking begins with two unlikely friends - the world's most respected scientist and a schoolgirl from New Jersey. From their first conversation Mimi Beaufort had a profound effect on Einstein and brought him, in his final years, back to life. In turn he let her into his world.

Albert Einstein Speaking is the story of an incredible friendship, and of a remarkable life. The son of an electrician in nineteenth-century Germany, Albert Einstein went on to become one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists and the most famous face in the world. This riotous, charming and moving novel spans almost a century of European history and shines a light on the real man behind the myth.

This was such a quick fun read! It pulled me in and I couldn't believe it was already over when I reached the end.

*Book received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
managedbybooks | 3 altre recensioni | Jul 25, 2019 |
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit:: http://www.ManOfLaBook.com

Albert Einstein Speaking by R. J. Gadney is a part biography / part historical fiction about the most famous scientist of our time. Mr. Gadney was a teacher, television producer, and an award winning scriptwriter who unfortunately passed away in May, 2018.

I found this strange book to be a charming, light read but a bit strange and difficult to get into. The format of Albert Einstein Speaking by R. J. Gadney is partly journalistic fact reporting, mixed with fictional dialogue in between.

Even though the book is separated into five long chapters, each one is made up of very short sections, quick to read and comprehend. Unlike the excellent biography Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, the author does not try to explain the theory of relativity or any other of Prof. Einstein’s ideas in any great length.

The book starts off in a manner which really throws the reader off, a phone call between a young Bostonian student in Princeton, how mistakenly called the famous physicist. An interesting beginning, but unfortunately we don’t hear any more about the young lady or her relationship with the Einstein (who loved young people) until the end of the book. That was very strange to me, leading the reader onto a promised story only to have 80% of the book ignore the promised narrative.

If I had to categorize this book, I would say it is a biography of Albert Einstein geared to the young adult crowd, with a mix of fictional dialogue and short bookend novel on the elder protagonist and a young woman.

I don’t know what the author was going for in this puzzling book. did he want to write a biography? A fictionalized biography? While this was an easy to read book, entertaining and interesting in most of the parts, I thought it was disjointed but yet, somehow, straightforward.
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
ZoharLaor | 3 altre recensioni | Jul 3, 2019 |
I’m not certain what this book is. It is described as a novel, a work of fiction, but it seems to be a biography of Albert Einstein. It even has actual photos included! The only fictional element seems to be Mimi Beaufort, a 17-year-old girl who accidentally dials Einstein’s phone number.

The book opens promisingly. Mimi misdials and ends up reaching Einstein on the day of his 75th birthday. They chat very briefly and end with promises to talk again. The first chapter even has touches of humour: Einstein tells his secretary, “’When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it’s longer than any hour. That’s relativity.’” This beginning suggests I can expect to read what the publisher described: “From their first conversation Mimi Beaufort had a profound effect on Einstein and brought him, in his final years, back to life. In turn he let her into his world.” A “riotous, charming and moving novel” is promised, but what the reader gets is a poorly-written biography of the famous scientist. The reader has to plow through 75% of the book before Mimi actually shows up again! And since Mimi supposedly speaks to Einstein on March 14, 1954, and Einstein died 13 months later, on April 17, 1955, how can Mimi have had a profound influence on his final years?

Even if this were a biography, it has so many unnecessary details. When Albert moves, we are told, “The three-room apartment is at Wittelsbacherstraße 13 in a well-to-do neighbourhood near Fehrbelliner Platz. He has a telephone number, Berlin 2807.” When Albert takes trips on the lake in Zürich, the reader gets the ships provenance: “The family takes trips on the paddle-steamer Stadt Rapperswil, built by Escher, Wyss & C. for the Zürich-Schifffahrtsgesellchaft.” When Einstein encounters any fellow scientist, that person’s accomplishments are enumerated: “Lorentz shared the 1902 Nobel Prize with his fellow Dutchman Pieter Zeeman for the discovery of the Zeeman effect: ‘in recognition of the extraordinary service they rendered by their researches into the influence of magnetism upon radiation phenomena’.” We are informed that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated with a “blowback-operated, semi-automatic FN Model 1910 Browning pistol, manufactured by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium.” This is essential information in a biography of Einstein? We are given the list of Albert and Elsa’s shopping: “red cabbage, goat fat and kippered herring. Bottles of essence of lily of the valley.” Then there are geography lessons: “Albert lectures in Sendal, northeast of Tokyo on Honshu island; in Nikko, in the mountains north of Tokyo; in Nagoya, in the Chūbu region; in Kyoto, and in Fukuoka on the northern shore of Japan’s Kyushu island.” And do we really need to know that Elsa rummages in her handbag “for her phials of aromatic perfumes: Aventure, with its notes of cedar wood, amber and pink pepper, Linde Berlin, which evokes Berlin’s famously fragrant linden trees, and Violet, based on a perfume created for Marlene Dietrich” ? This type of extraneous detail is found throughout and to say it becomes tedious is an understatement.

The style is very disjointed. Sentences are strung together without connection: “The 16,500-ton Red Star Line’s SS Westernland sails from Antwerp with Elsa and Helen Dukas aboard. An unmarked police car deposits Albert on the Southampton quayside . . . ” Try to make sense of these consecutive sentences: “In the summer they take a holiday on Saranac Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. The doctor administers morphine. Else tries to knit a scarf.” And then there is needless repetition. The information that “Mimi and Isabella might dream of studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Unfortunately there are insufficient funds to enable them to do so” is followed by “They’ve learned that there are no funds available to meet the Royal Academy of Music’s tuition fees, travel and accommodation expenses.”

At times, things that are mentioned make no sense. Einstein suffers from “violent diarrhoea” but is told to drink water and to exercise “to stimulate his bowel movements”? The passage of time is not clearly delineated so confusion results. For example, the reader is told that “Mileva suffers a nervous breakdown and is confined in the Zürich Theodosianum Parkseite Klinik.” Three sentences later, we are told that “Mileva and Tete are confined in the Bethanien Klinik in Zürich – Mileva with chronic nerve pressure on her spine.”

As I stated at the beginning, I’m not certain what this book is trying to be. In actuality it seems like an unrevised rough draft. According to promotional material for the book, Ian McEwan has stated that R. J. Gadney, “has conjured, with an accomplished novelist's art, a strange and luminous fiction, a literary gem.” I’m a great admirer of Ian McEwan’s writing, but he and I definitely disagree about the quality of this book.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Schatje | 3 altre recensioni | Jun 22, 2018 |
2.5 stars Another quick read, but I'm not 100% sure what this book could be categorized as? I thought it fiction when I requested it, and in the beginning it appeared that it would be, especially how the wrong number phone call to Albert Einstein was written. What followed this was a very dry, chronological summary of some of the Einstein's life events, instead of the continuation of what first appeared as a quirky quick story about Einstein.

At first it wasn't bad, it seemed heartwarming in many places, but then....I don't know? Is this non-fiction? An imagined non-fiction based story? It's odd, it's very dry and very straightforward, and while a short and quick read, a confusing one for me as to what genre I was reading, or really, the purpose of this story/book.… (altro)
 
Segnalato
Penny_Lithoarders | 3 altre recensioni | May 30, 2018 |

Statistiche

Opere
3
Utenti
40
Popolarità
#370,100
Voto
½ 2.7
Recensioni
4
ISBN
6