The Man Who Made Lists
Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of

If I hadn't just read The Last Man Who Knew Everything Thomas Young, The Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Feats of Genius, this book would have been more impressive. As it was, both authors wrote books abou......more

*****3.5***** Kendall states in his Acknowledgements that "this book was not meant to be a scholarly biography." The book isn't an authority on Roget but instead talks about Roget's mania with making lists (see title) and why and how making lists helped him escape the fate of his mother, sister, uncl......more

I have a confession to make: I've never liked Roget's Thesaurus. The organization by categories rather than by simple alphabetization was never intuitive to me. But my criticism is not as extreme as that of Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman, who lays the blame for the demise o......more

I think Peter Roget might be my historical soulmate. His biographer, though, is a little over-assiduous in emphasizing the OCD theme, so much so that when the reader finally reaches the publication of thesaurus it's regrettably anticlimactic. The transitions from straight fact to imagined dialogue a......more

Audible sale (#8 of 40) 8 hours 58 min. Narrated by Stephen Hoye (A) This author 's book could have used a good editor to pare down the repetitive sections. Good research on the interesting life of Peter Mark Roget, but the author delves into psycho-analysis without credibility. The title needs to ha......more