Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a collection of autobiographical stories drawn from Richard Feynman’s conversations with Ralph Leighton. The book follows episodes from Feynman’s childhood, education and scientific career, including his studies at Princeton, his work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and his later academic life. Alongside physics, he describes interests ranging from lock-picking and drawing to music and travel.

The episodes emphasise Feynman’s habit of investigating problems directly and questioning assumptions rather than accepting explanations at face value. Several stories concern experiments, puzzles and encounters with academic or professional conventions, while others describe his experiences in places including Brazil and Japan. The book is not a systematic account of his scientific work or a conventional chronological autobiography. Instead, it presents selected experiences that illustrate his curiosity, scepticism, humour and approach to learning, while offering an informal account of scientific life in the 20th century.