This is a book review of More Than Curious: A Science Memoir by William H. Press.
More Than Curious: A Science Memoir, by William H. Press (Darwin-Finch Publishing Company), 2023. Pp. 589, 22.9 × 15.2 cm. Price $15 (paperback, ISBN 979 8989549726).
I've never met Bill Press. I've never corresponded with him. I've seen him once. But after having read this book, I feel that I've known him all my life, or even all his life. At 589 pages, this is a rather long memoir, but it is the short version. A longer one, with more details on things probably of interest only to his family but also containing things he doesn't want made public until after all concerned will have died, is in escrow and will be made available "someday...but not soon". Maybe I'll live that long. At times, I thought that I must have got the long version by mistake, as the memoir is very candid. The book consists of seventy chapters centred around various topics, though they usually refer to more than just the topic in the title. It is well written, funny, and provides an insider's view of many interesting events. The more one knows about the fields Press has worked in and the people involved, the more one will get out of it. All interested in the history of academia in general and astronomy in particular in the last sixty years will surely benefit from this memoir, a real page-turner which is not only highly entertaining but also from which almost everyone will learn something interesting. There isn't much time left, but I would like to see similar works by others of Press's generation (and, later, by younger people, though my guess is that, for various reasons, Press's generation of astronomers probably had the most fun).