Word: isaacs
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...Guinness Book of World Records says that mystery writer John Creasey in England published more than 500 books," says Isaac Asimov. "But it seems fair to say that no one has written more books on more subjects than I." The vertical pronoun frequently occurs in the author's conversation, but there is as much self-concealment as self-promotion in his talk. As he approaches his 70th year, for example, Asimov has come to see himself merely as a "born explainer." Yet explaining implies understanding, and there is very little in this world that Asimov does not understand. If something...
...performing this alchemy for four decades, Isaac Asimov has become an oracle, particularly in the world of science. These are, after all, the Years ^ When the Earth Talked Back, and long before the politicians, he was listening. Today readers search works like The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science and Today and Tomorrow and . . . for advice on space programs and the greenhouse effect. Many of them go directly to the source with their questions. If Asimov has respect for the interrogators, he answers thoughtfully, in detail. If not, he has a habit of assuming an abstracted, extraterrestrial manner...
This impatience with pseudo science began some 60 years ago, when little Isaac fell in love with facts. He was introduced to the world of information in his parents' Brooklyn candy store. The Asimovs were culturally ambitious Jewish immigrants from Russia, where their son was born, and the boy made a habit of devouring magazines as soon as they were put in the rack. "So that the publications could be sold later without looking used," he recalls, "I read them with a very light hand. When I was through, they would close as neatly as though they had never been...
...those are the ones Isaac Asimov is currently studying, seated at his TRS 80, beginning the long trek to Opus 500. Working in his customary routine from 7 a.m. to evening, he will pursue a science fiction novel, provisionally titled Nemesis; a "rather large history of science"; a collection of columns for Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine; and a collaboration with wife Janet on a children's book about Norby, the friendly robot. Every so often, he and Janet will saunter downtown for a look at some Fifth Avenue shopwindows. Royalties and lecture fees bring in a high-six-figure income...
Autobiographies and mysteries, collections of limericks, books on physics and the Bible, Shakespeare and sci- fi -- all bear the byline of the protean author Isaac Asimov...