Joseph (Joe) Gerard Polchinski Jr. was an exceptional physicist who gave a lot to string theory. He has inspired a generation of physicists. He is personally one of my string heroes. In his later life, he suffered from cancer that made him unable to even read. Despite all the constraints, he wrote his autobiography and posted it on arXiv in 2017; you may read it here. Ahmed Almheiri (Joe's student) recently edited the biography to add more scientific explanations and image plates. There is a forward by Andrew Strominger and afterward by Joe's family. The book has been published by MIT Press.