When you'll be 30, she'll be an old hag. In several of the other essays, Bernstein criticizes biographers for giving too many details about the lively heterosexuality of Schr dinger, Feynman, Watson, and Crick, and the tragic homosexuality of Alan Turing. However this criticism comes across a bit hypocritical, since Bernstein includes enough racy details himself to make his own book more interesting. You won't find much dry science here. However, Cranks is not simply a survey of the diversions of famous scientists.
Several essays offer new insights on historically important characters.
I found the essay on Ernst Mach particularly interesting since I have been curious about his role in scientific history. Einstein credits Mach as one of his inspirations, and Mach's Principle is usually mentioned pro-forma in cosmology books, but it is not really used anywhere in Einstein's relativity. Mach was an interesting character, though. He doubted both atoms and relativity, and the essay relates his interactions with Boltzmann and Einstein. You wont learn much about cranks, quarks, or the cosmos in his book, but you will find some entertaining tales about a few of the more famous, and one or two of the less famous, stars in the scientific drama.