What makes Isaac run? What drives this Brooklyn-reared son of Russian-Jewish immigrants to work so assiduously at his typewriter … that he has turned out 199 books in 29 years, thereby earning himself a reputation as one of the leading science-fiction writers and the pre-eminent science popularizer of our day?

Readers who seek the answer to this question will not be disappointed by ["In Memory Yet Green,"] the first volume of Asimov's projected two-volume autobiography. Indeed, he gives the game away early on. Compulsive writers, he makes clear, are made, not born…. (p. 13)

Asimov goes on to detail his writing career…. (He is, as one might guess, an inveterate diarist.) He writes candidly of his relationship with Joan W. Campbell Jr., the editor of "Astounding," whose knack for nurturing young talent was responsible for what has come to be known as the Golden Age of science fiction. He also writes about...