The Strangest Man: The Life of Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo

Paul Dirac, the subject of this superb biography, was the youngest ever physics Nobel Laureate, the co-discoverer of quantum mechanics and the man who predicted the existence of antimatter. He believed the fundamental laws of the universe must be "beautiful". Yet he was scathing of philosophy, complaining that Wittgenstein, his Cambridge contemporary, "talked too much". When he received the Order of Merit from the Queen, an acquaintance asked him what she was like. "Very small," Dirac replied. Farmelo succeeds in making us share his curiosity not only about subatomic particles but about the equally mysterious energies involved in Dirac's own life.