David S. Weiss

Einstein is everyman's physicist, and his iconic stature is often hard to distinguish from a caricature. But he's also near the very top of almost all physicists' favorite physicists. I first read these essays after I learned special relativity during my sophomore year in college, which was the most fun I ever had in a classroom. For a while I couldn't get enough Einstein. Some of the essays in this book resonated with the scientific view of the world that I've had since I was 11, and reading them when I was 19 was inspirational.