I read "Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center," by Ray Monk. The author's premise is that the famous scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer was driven by a need to be "inside the center" of everything he did--and Monk makes a strong case that Oppenheimer's famous charisma reflected that drive. The book also gives a fascinating account of how the first decades of the last century saw tremendous advances in physics. Monk details the achievements of such scientific luminaries as Paul Dirac, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, Paul Ehrenfest, Max Born, Ernest Lawrence, and others. Excellent reading.