The fascinating true story of two German scientists – Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Grauss - and their quest to discover facts about the world that we take for granted today. The two eccentrics are completely different characters from completely different backgrounds with completely different working styles – but they are brought together by their common yearning for truth and knowledge. Grauss, the great mathematician, born in poverty, is reluctant to get out of bed, let alone leave home (despite the company of his own family who he despises). The aristocratic von Humboldt, the naturalist and explorer, is an emotional loner who travels the world with relentless energy and missionary zeal. Yet this book brings them together forever. If you enjoyed A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, you will enjoy completing your learning curve by reading this book.
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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The brilliant debut novel by the author of The Director portrays the comic collision of two radically different Enlightenment geniuses--one who explored the world in person, and the other who pushed the boundaries of the universe in his own head.
"Kehlmann's lightly surreal style [is] a mixture of comedy, romance, and the macabre, with flashes of magical realism that read like Borges in the Black Forest."-The Washington Post Book World
"Addictively readable and genuinely and deeply funny." -Los Angeles Times
Late in the eighteenth century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the aristocratic naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates jungles, voyages down the Orinoco River, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores and measures every cave and hill he comes across. The other, the reclusive and barely socialized mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, can prove that space is curved without leaving his home. Terrifyingly famous and wildly eccentric, these two polar opposites finally meet in Berlin in 1828, and are immediately embroiled in the turmoil of the post-Napolean world.
Measuring the World features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, eBooks of the Month, Book Club Recommendations, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
Measuring the World is available in Ebook, Paperback, Hardback
Measuring the World was written by Daniel Kehlmann and published by Vintage Books an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Measuring the World has 272 pages
