In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954

by Isaac Asimov

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0380754320
• ISBN13: 9780380754328
• Release Date: January 1980
• Publisher: Avon Books
• Length: 732 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

As absorbing as a whodunit

It was my lucky day when I walked into a local used-book store and found both volumes of Isaac Asimov's autobiography. You might think that reading about the life of a man who spent most of his time in a windowless room pounding a typewriter would be a tedious chore, but you would be wrong in this case. I'm a great fan of detective fiction, and I found "In Memory Yet Green" and its sequel every bit as absorbing and unputdownable as any whodunit. These volumes cover the years 1920 to 1978. Be sure to also read the 1990 memoir, "I.Asimov."

How coule someone make this interesting?

Undertaking merely one of the two volumes of Asimov's autobiography seems a daunting task, but as Orson Scott Card said at a signing I recently attended, "Asimov's style is so liquid. He led a boring life and yet I found myself turning the pages eagerly." This is exactly the position I found myself in reading this and the next tome of Asimov's life story: enthralled. This comes in part from a keen interest in the man, his work, and life, and also in part from the simple fact that he was such a damn good writer. I wouldn't recommend the book as light reading, but for anyone who is interested in the genius and his life, don't hesitate.

Meet the man who wrote and published 500 books

Asimov hesitated to undertake an autobiography. He steadfastly maintained that nothing of interest ever happened to him. He determined that, if he were to write such an autobiography, he'd have to call on all his skill as a writer to disguise the fact. You'll have to decide for yourself whether his life was indeed as dull as he claimed, but you won't question his skill as a writer. In Memory Yet Green (and its companion volume, In Joy Still Felt) makes us participants in the life of one of the greatest minds in 20th century America. You feel you know his parents and siblings. You'll feel you'd recognize his father's candy store, their apartment, his schools, his neighborhood if you saw them. You'll share in his academic successes and travails and in the loves of his life. You'll meet his friends, the list of which reads like a who's who of the Golden Age of Science Fiction.Asimov was a masterful writer and a genius at making science understandable to the average reader. But he also wrote about the Bible, about literary criticism, he wrote some of the best-loved science fiction ever, he wrote limericks, essays, and the list goes on and on. I like to joke that he could make a phone book an interesting read. He certainly makes reading about his life a delight.

It makes me want to read Volume II.

Isaac Asimov has given us an honest insight into what made him what he was. He didn't rely on his memory, but on diaries begun as a child and religiously kept up. A child prodigy, a son of Jewish Russian immigrants, he was expected to work in his father's candy store daily, yet excel in school. The book details his early science fiction writing and the determination to succeed. Somehow, the daily activities which could be boring if not written well, held my interest throughout. This first volume only covers through age 34. Now I have to find Volume II!

A detailed narrative of a prolific author's life

I read this book (and all of Asimov's autobiographies) when they were first printed and have read each one at least twice. If you like Asimov's "gentle reader" writing style, reading his autobiographies will be fun for you, more so if you want a view into a busy, obsessed writer's life and the forces that shaped him. These books are frank (especially "I, Asimov"), interesting, and very often amusing. "In Memory Yet Green" and "In Joy Still Felt" are large tomes, totalling about 1550pp together. For a biography of Asimov, you can't do better than these. As he mentioned in his biographies, there's not much in the way of action or big events in these books. It's a long trip through all the words, but the trip is enjoyable.