Looking for a good end-of-summer read? Cast your eye over the voluminous catalog of the Library of Congress, which lists 380 books, plays, and other items with the name Einstein in the title, and a further 170 with Einstein as author. These include biographies and studies of relativity, of course. They also encompass his youth, his love life, his long-lost daughter, his brain, and his blunders. They examine his views on war and peace, on religion, on Zionism, and on humanism, and they link him to such figures as Newton, Galileo, Picasso, Buddha, Jesus, Freud, and Frankenstein. How to make sense of this cornucopia? Josie Glausiusz selects the best of the books, exhibits, movies, music, and other Einstein ephemera.

Biographies

One of the best, Einstein’s Cosmos: How Albert Einstein’s Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time, by Michio Kaku (Atlas Books, 2004), weaves together a seamless synthesis of Einstein’s life and science, showing how his theories gave birth to the great movements of modern physics, including string theory and the search for the origins of the universe. Einstein’s physicist friend Abraham Pais wrote two authoritative biographies: ‘Subtle is the Lord . . . ’: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (Oxford University Press, 1982) and Einstein Lived Here (Oxford University Press, 1994). In Einstein in Berlin (Bantam, 2003), Thomas Levenson documents Einstein’s years at the University of Berlin and his exile from Germany in 1932. Einstein in America: The Scientist’s Conscience in the Age of Hitler and Hiroshima, by Jamie Sayen (Crown, 1985), describes Einstein’s sojourn at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and, in particular, his many battles for social justice.

See also: Einstein: A Life, by Denis Brian (John Wiley, 1996).

Einstein: The Life and Times, by Ronald W. Clark (Avon Books, 1972).

Albert Einstein: A Biography, by Albrecht Fölsing, translated by Ewald Osers (Penguin Books, 1997).

Relativity

At one end of the spectrum, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Einstein, by Gary F. Moring (Alpha Books, second edition, 2004), traces the theory of relativity all the way back to the Greeks and up to unified field theory, with plentiful diagrams, cartoons, and easy explanations to smooth the way.   At the other end is the master himself. In Relativity: The Special and General Theory, by Albert Einstein, translated by Robert W. Lawson (Dover Publications, 2001), and The Principle of Relativity: A Collection of Original Papers on the Special and General Theory of Relativity, by  A. Einstein, H. A. Lorentz, H. Minkowski, and H. Weyl (Dover Publications, 1924), Einstein explains his theories to the layperson, with Principle providing translations of his most important papers.   In between is E = mc²: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation, by David Bodanis (Walker & Company, 2000), an intelligent and engaging look at the theory’s ancestors, its interpreters, and its modern-day applications. 

See also: Einstein’s Miraculous Year: Five Papers That Changed the Face of Physics, edited by John Stachel (Princeton University Press, 1998).

Einstein’s 1912 Manuscript on the Special Theory of Relativity (George Braziller, 1996). A facsimile edition, complete with scribbles and crossings-out.

Personal Papers, Photographs, and Essays

From the Einstein Archives in Jerusalem comes Albert Through the Looking Glass: The Personal Papers of Albert Einstein, by Ze’ev Rosenkranz (The Jewish National and University Library, 1998), a marvelous book of artifacts that includes the 1952 invitation offering Einstein the presidency of Israel and his reply, regretfully declining.  Essential Einstein, compiled and edited by Allen Boyce Eddington (Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995), is a coffee-table collage of quotations and photographs, among them an image of a smiling Einstein in a headdress alongside a group of Hopi Indians at the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Some of Einstein’s most influential writings appear in three collections: The World as I See It (The Wisdom Library, 1949); Out of My Later Years (Philosophical Library, 1950); and Ideas and Opinions (Bonanza Books, 1954). Gems found in them include his essays “Why Socialism?” (1949) and “The War Is Won But the Peace Is Not” (1945), an homage to Mahatma Gandhi (1939), and a 1931 letter to Sigmund Freud (“[Y]ou, least of all men, are the dupe of your desires.”).  Einstein on Peace, edited by Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden (Schocken Books, 1968), assembles Einstein’s outpourings on pacifism, from his first political act—a bold signing of a manifesto calling for European unity at the outset of World War I—to his last (a petition opposing the nuclear arms race, a week before his death in 1955).  Such views evidently invited the scrutiny of the FBI, which amassed an enormous file on a man some considered an “alien Red.” Read an analysis in The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist, by Fred Jerome (St. Martin’s Press, 2002), or download the 1,427-page file at foia.fbi.gov/ einstein.htm.

See also: Albert Einstein: The Human Side—New Glimpses From His Archives, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann (Princeton University Press, 1979).

The Expanded Quotable Einstein, collected and edited by Alice Calaprice (Princeton University Press, 2000).