A review by humanignorance
Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor by Brian Keating

2.0

The book has three distinct parts: personal memoir, history of astronomical discovery, and reflections on the Nobel Prize and the structure of scientific research. The organization of the book was poor, since these three parts interrupted each other, despite their lack of synergy. Frankly, the three parts are so loosely connected that they should have been put into three separate books. The memoir part was largely uninteresting. The astronomical history was interesting, at least, and reasonably accessible to the scientifically literate layperson. It skipped some important parts, though. The Nobel part was also interesting, but a bit long-winded – it could easily have been condensed into a long article.