Mon. April 23

Does a name have more intellectual impact than that of Albert Einstein? Not in pop cultural sense, certainly. Somebody who's flustered about something might respond, "Well, I'm no Einstein." Of course, how many of us really know the man behind e = mc2? There have been bios before but Walter Isaacson, former managing editor at Time, is the first book written after the full opening of his archived letters. And so, we learn about the German Jew who turned his back on both his religion and his nation as a teen, and made his mark in 1905 - a full half-century before his death. Isaacson writes about the science and the fame, but also about Einstein's personal life, including his first marriage to physicist Mileva Maric. (pictured together here) Einstein so wanted out of that in 1919 he promised her his expected Nobel Prize money! Einstein came to America in 1922, where he was treated as a celebrity; the Stephen Hawking of his time, he definitely would have done his voice on "The Simpsons" if asked. More seriously, he was one of the primary voices to counsel Franklin D. Roosevelt as to the big What If. That is, what if Germany got the atomic bomb? Isaacson will read from "Einstein: His Life and Universe" at the Coolidge Corner Theatre Monday April 23 at 6 p.m. Tickets: $2, which you get across the street from the sponsoring Brookline Booksmith.

279 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-566-6660 brooklinebooksmith.com