American Prometheus, Martin J. Sherwin & Kai Bird
My 15 year old son (one of the younger set of twins) was obsessed with Oppenheimer…no, not just the movie although he is equally obsessed with Nolan films…but the person and by extension, all books about him, including this one. I am pretty sure we went to see the movie in the theatre 5 times. Not only that, but he wanted to go to Los Alamos after reading the book. We were there for 18 hours and he had the time of his life. I was reading other books over the few months that he was reading this one, and he bugged me and bugged me until I finally did—and it was extremely good. The authors are historically accurate, fair, and leave their opinions out of it. I respect objectivity and it has become increasingly rare. I have begun reading Sherwin and Bird’s other books for that reason.
Oppenheimer was a genius and an interesting person, obviously. But his martinis—STRONG. I know this because my son HAD TO BUY Oppenheimer’s martini shaker from the Los Alamos gift shop. As my mouth and throat burned as I drank Oppie’s famous martini, I thought “so this is what you have to drink when you know you’ve just changed the course of humanity.” Makes sense.