This past weekend, I finished the most amazing biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer, considered to be the father of the atomic age, entitled American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin and published by Vintage. The book won the Pulitzer Prize and is absolutely worth the read.
As I learned while reading (and I forget the exact page), it turns out that Christian Century, in the May 15, 1963 issue, asked him to pick his top ten books that "did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life." Here is the list in no particular order:
Hamlet William Shakespeare
The Wasteland T.S. Eliot
Bhagavad-Gita
Les Fleurs du Mal Charles Baudelaire
The Three Centuries (Satakatrayam) Bhartrhari
The Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri
The Notebooks Michael Faraday
L'Education sentimentale Gustave Flaubert
Theaetetus Plato
collected works G. F. Bernhard Riemann
I thought that this might be of interest to some of our readers. It is always important to consider the nexus of culture, religion, literature, and natural sciences. Oppenheimer was a man, as controversial as he was - and, perhaps, still is - seemed conscientious of such things.
I was able to find the full list of books from The Gita of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by James A. Hijiya, available for download in pdf form.
NB: As an avid reader of Christian Century, I would love to see the editors make such a "top ten" list an occasional feature in future issues...
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