Everyone recognises his dotty professor pictures, everyone can recite his famous formula, everyone admires his combination of revolutionary science with profound and apparently deeply-felt humanity; but as a human being Einstein is still probably some thing of a mystery to most people. In this massive volume - over eight hundred paperback pages - Albrecht Folsing manages to engage with bothsides of his subject's life, presenting a lively portrait both of his genius in the scientific sphere and his incorrigible selfishness in domestic matters (a child born outside wedlock was given up, almost casually, for adoption, and when it became obvious that a "no-commitment" relationship with his cousin suited him better than marriage, he strolled away from his first wife and their two sons). Some of the physics is, as you would expect, tough going for the general reader, but Folsing's style is patient and lucid and if you don't get it this time around, the chances are you probably never will.
By Arminta Wallace