Herman Wouk's new book is The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion

Herman Wouk has a new book coming out April 5. He is 94 years old.

Update: We've read an advanced proof. The title is misleading. The book is a clever retrospective by Wouk about his own work and his thinking on various and sundry big philosophical topics along with small observations about people and events.

We got the impression that Wouk was traumatized by a meeting with the great physicist Richard Phillips Feynman who offered Wouk little respect and instructed him to learn calculus, the language that God talks. Wouk claims to have tried unsuccessfully to do that late in life by returning to school. He closes the book with his answer to Feynman (who died in 1988). This came across to us as more of a personal reflection by a personality of big ego than any insight of intellectual value. We learned about jousting celebrities who enjoyed speculating on big thoughts outside of their areas of special knowledge and talent - quite entertaining but not at all edifying - and that's okay - except that we suspect that Wouk believes his scribblings on subjects beyond his ken are awfully important. Perhaps they are. That's surely beyond our realm of expertise.

Herman Wouk's Surprising Passion
G. Jeffrey MacDonald -- Publishers Weekly
For much of the 20th century, readers counted on Herman Wouk to probe-in both fiction and nonfiction-the existential questions raised by war, love, and coming-of-age. An observant Jew, he always kept a theological lens close at hand.

Now Wouk, 94, puts such works as Winds of War and War and Remembrance in a new context by fleshing out his own backstory. In The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion (Little, Brown; Apr.), Wouk reveals an abiding fascination with science as a key to understanding God's world. Wouk brings readers along to meet the scientists who granted him interviews, became his friends, and supplied fodder for his trademark lengthy novels over many decades.

The Language God Talks "is a sort of Summing Up," Wouk told PW in an e-mail when asked about his intended legacy. He explains that science is not a new topic for him; it figures prominently in many a Wouk subplot. But readers may not know the lengths of his quest-as a self-effacing man of letters, not numbers-to get a handle on scientific methods...more...