Measuring the World

I have a tendency to distrust writers I haven't heard of. Yes, I know it's ridiculous and it's probably why I read too many Dick Francis novels again & again. But this admission shouldn't make you believe that I don't step out of my comfort zone. Once in a while, a book slips in between the cracks of my armour. One such example is Measuring the World.

At first glance it seemed a little strange, an English translation of a German novel about two 19th century scientists - Alexander von Humboldt, the explorer and naturalist and Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss the mathematician and astronomer. Humboldt became famous for, among other things establishing that the river Orinoco was connected to the Amazon. Wikipedia says of him in his prime, "with the exception of Napoleon Bonaparte, Humboldt was now the most famous man in Europe."

The other man Gauss, knowns as 'the prince of mathematicians' believed that parallel lines meet. This motif is also used to describe the parallel lives of the two scientists who may have never met in real life. In the book though, they do. Measuring the World is a witty, wicked tale that takes liberties with some facts but it's a delight - for the writer's style is unique. Read it if you can, don't wait for the book to fall on your head in some dusty bookshop.

p.s. I only realised I was reading another best-seller (not that the label should count for much) halfway through the novel when glancing through the blurb I'd earlier glazed over-

"measuring the world has...sold more than 600,000 copies in Germany, knocking J Rowling and Dan Brown off the bestseller lists."

p.p.s. Just before posting this, I read this review of the book again, and realised that the 2nd para of this piece borrows a phrase or thought from it. I haven't changed what I wrote as a reminder that it's all too easy to 'borrow' from other writers even if one has unwittingly committed the crime!