Edison

Edison (author Edmund Morris)

A great read and a deep dive by Edmund Morris. Morris shows off his Pulitzer Prize-winning chops beautifully in a biography that is approached in an unusual but compelling Benjamin Button-esque style. The depth of research is incredible. The reader is left feeling that they actually knew the great Edison a little bit...and that's the sign of a great biography. The details are all there and we get to see Edison way beyond his most famous inventions (the lightbulb, municipal electricity). There's his obsession with sound (despite being almost entirely deaf) and the phonograph, as well as moving pictures, a mining folly that very nearly ate every dollar he had, and his incredible number of patents. We also gain an understanding of his relationship with his family and ultimately form a picture of a relentlessly driven yet fundamentally flawed man. A man who was a scrooge most days but occasionally generous. A man who wore multiple pairs of underwear to keep warm, ate very little and often worked 18 hours days for a week at a stretch. Highly recommended. A rich, detailed biography that goes well beyond the inventions and deeply explores the man, his motivations, quirks and foibles. I've put this one on the shelf of books that is earmarked for re-reading in the coming years.