Sydney Brenner is a brilliant biologist, Freeman Dyson is a fantastic physicist, W.D. Snodgrass is a prodigious poet (and what a name!) — but why would you want me to tell you that when the geniuses themselves can do it directly and with less goofy alliteration? I refer to the People’s Archive, a trove of first-person stories from the great intellectual celebrities of our time, including some who have recently passed on, such as Francis Crick and Ernst Mayr. Give me Brenner sitting in a cozy library, telling his story in a rich, rolling accent, over some crapparazzi video of Lindsay Lohan leaving a club anyday…

via SEED