Engaging if sometimes hard to read story about a Black boy from Mississippi whose greatest period of stability as a kid came from living on his father’s pot farm. His path to astrophysics was wandering and full of setbacks as well as aggressions from white people, especially at Stanford where he got his PhD even after the committee changed the standard so he’d fail his qualifying exam. Twice, he struggles with crack addiction and comes back, with support from a few professors and fellow students who believe in him. His ultimate professional accomplishments, which are many, are listed at the end; he doesn’t share much about his relationship with his kids or his wife, compared to his relationship with his family of birth, and though I don’t blame him for protecting that it highlights how this is a curated story—brutally honest about some things but with a narrative arc. ( )

A Quantum Life is the memoir of Hakeem Oluwesi, an astrophysicist who with his own extraordinary mind, hard work, and a few critical teachers went from poverty and crime to working for NASA. It is also an extraordinary example of capturing the mind of a child. In his book, Oluwesi talks of his childhood through a child’s eye. There is a hilarious scene where he’s watching an electric heater coils turn red and begins to wonder, as children do, what would happen if…and I won’t ruin it for you. I’ll just say it was hilarious and so perfectly captured the avid curiosity without boundaries of a child.

Oluwesi struggled with drug addiction, particularly with crack. He talks honestly about the euphoria it can engender, making its power over people easy to understand. He also talks about how it displaces everything else in priority. He fought a hard battle and succeeded, but it was very much thanks to critical interventions, when teachers took a chance on him, believed in him, and guided him. While much of his success is down to his own ability and hard work, he is scrupulous in crediting the many people who helped along the way. He also does not shy away from pointing out how racism was often an impediment and how hard he had to work to overcome the opinions of those who assumed he did not deserve his place in their schools.

I loved A Quantum Life. It was fast-paced and captivating. I read it in two bites and would happily read a second about his career at NASA and in academia. He also explains things that may be confusing to non-physicists in clear terms. He should write a book on quantum physics for nonscientists. He worked with a ghost writer,, Joshua Horwitz, and together they are a great combination.

I received an e-galley of A Quantum Life from the publisher through NetGalley.

A Quantum Life at Penguin Random House
Hakeem Oluseyi on Twitter

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2021/06/29/a-quantum-life-by-hakeem-... ( )

If you like astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, you need to meet Hakeem Oluseyi who despite a life that should have lead to being a gang member, he became professor at MIT, UC, Berkeley and the University of Cape Town. You will come away with a new appreciation of the combination of brains and determination as Oluseyi became one of a handful of black astrophysicists.
Sea is Salt and so am I ( )

autobiography, science-nerd, natural-musician, self-destructive-behaviors, genius*****

This is a brutally honest autobiography by a man who could have fallen through the cracks but did not despite a very unstable childhood, race issues, failures of the educational system, honorable discharge from the Navy dream, poor personal choices, depression/alcohol/drugs. He was on a lot of precipices and it took a long time and the help of others to land on his feet. I am very impressed by this man and his accomplishments even if I am not Black. This is a demanding read but well worth the time and money.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Random House Publishing Group/Ballantine via NetGalley. Thank you! ( )