“A delightful compendium of the kind of facts you immediately want to share with anyone you encounter . . . . Simon Winchester has firmly earned his place in history . . . as a promulgator of knowledge of every variety, perhaps the last of the famous explorers who crisscrossed the now-vanished British Empire and reported what they found to an astonished world.” — New York TimesFrom the creation of the first encyclopedia to Wikipedia, from ancient m...

One of Library Journal’s 10 Best Books of 2015Following his acclaimed Atlantic and The Men Who United the States, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester offers an enthralling biography of the Pacific Ocean and its role in the modern world, exploring our relationship with this imposing force of nature.As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise,...

“Another gem from one of the world’s justly celebrated historians specializing in unusual and always fascinating subjects and people.” — Booklist (starred review)The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement—precision—in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.T...

A New York Times Notable BookThe Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary—and literary history.The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that...

“As our climate changes, the force of the wind is set to grow. By looking to the past and the future, Winchester examines the twinned possibilities alive in this bluster: the power of the wind to tear our world apart and its ability to help us travel farther and do more.” — The Washington Post"Epic . . . . A splendidly written account of an unseeable force." — Kirkus Reviews

"Variably genial, cautionary, lyrical, admonitory, terrifying, horrifying and inspiring…A lifetime of thought, travel, reading, imagination and memory inform this affecting account." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester tells the breathtaking saga of the Atlantic Ocean in a masterful work of narrative nonfiction. A gifted storyteller and...

In the summer of 1858 in a garden behind Christ Church in Oxford Charles Dodgson--better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll--dressed the six-year-old Alice Liddell in ragamuffin's clothes and then snapped the camera's shutter. In The Alice Behind Wonderland Simon Winchester uses the famous photograph of Alice as the launching pad for an appreciative energetic and penetrating look at the inspiration behind and the making of one of the greatest classics of children's literature. Indeed Win...

The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force.In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, ...

“Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.” —Tom BrokawSimon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and ...

The New York Times bestselling author of Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman takes readers on a quirky and charming tour of the last outpost of the British empireOutposts is Simon Winchester's journey to find the vanishing empire, "on which the sun never sets." In the course of a three-year, 100,000 mile journey—from the chill of the Antarctic to the blue seas of the Caribbean, from the South of Spain and the tip of China t...

“In many ways, Land combines bits and pieces of many of Winchester’s previous books into a satisfying, globe-trotting whole. . . . Winchester is, once again, a consummate guide.”—Boston GlobeThe author of The Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, and The Perfectionists explores the notion of property—bought, earned, or received; in Europe, Africa, North America, or the South Pacific—through human history, how it has shaped us and what it will mean for o...

The bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World examines the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic volcanic eruption off the coast of Java of the earth’s most dangerous volcano — Krakatoa.The legendary annihilation in 1883 of the volcano-island of Krakatoa — the name has since become a byword for a cataclysmic natural disaster — was followed by an immense tsunami that killed nearly forty...