A review by chughes120
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird

4.0

I have to assume that I would have found this quite a bit drier had I not watched Oppenheimer first, but having the movie as a primer made this very exciting to read. I can't tell if it's more well-written than the average biography, or Oppenheimer's life is just that much more intriguing than the average life, but either way I really enjoyed it all the way through. It obviously provides a lot more detail than the movie did and expands the timeline, but what's really amazing is how tame the movie portrayal was; it's usually the other way around. (Spoiler alert: Strauss was actually even more petty IRL and they haven't ruled out that Jean may have been murdered).

My biggest issue tbh is with the audiobook. Y'all need to go back and do some editing because there are too many random volume changes and at least one part that's re-read.