Isaac Asimov is regarded as one of the greatest writers in American history in several fields. Born in 1920, his family immigrated from Russia when he was age 3. He taught himself to read at age 5 and never stopped reading. His parents owned candy stores in Brooklyn which was a never-ending supply of magazine and pulp-fiction books.

He first began writing Science Fiction in 1937 for pulp magazines and is responsible for the acknowledged greatest series of all-time, "Foundation" and its follow-up stories. He also wrote the classic "I, Robot," and is credited with the Laws of Robotics and the term "Positronic brain." His interest in Rex Stout mysteries led him to write "The Caves of Steel," a sci-fi novel about a detective solving a murder with a robot partner, and two sequels.

He earned Doctorates in Chemistry and Philosophy in the 1940s and has written literally hundreds of books on a variety of nonfiction subjects. Asimov was so prolific that his books span all major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification except for category 100, philosophy and psychology.

Asimov was a claustrophile, loving his cramped, book-filled office, and had a fear of flying so strong he only flew twice in his entire life. He had a heart attack in 1977, and a triple bypass heart operation in 1983, during which he contracted HIV from a contaminated blood transfusion. It was kept secret until his death in 1992.

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