man who made lists love, death, madness, and the creation of Roget's Thesaurus Hardback - 2008

Summary

Media reviews

'Madness did not just run in [Roget's] family; it galloped, sped, sprinted, dashed and made haste. If the title of Joshua Kendall's fine new biography of Roget has a clinical Oliver Sacks feel, the material pretty much justifies it. . . . [Kendall] convinces a reader of the psychological roots and therapeutic success of the Thesaurus.'
New York Time Book Review

'The Man Who Made Lists is brisk and vivid, with Kendall coloring between the lines left by history. . . . Word geeks may find something to get their temperatures up.'
Los Angeles Times

'A readable and informative, if not masterful treatment of a worthy and fascinating subject.'
Seattle Times

'Who knew that the man behind the thesaurus also invented the slide rule, volunteered to test laughing gas, and barely avoided jail in revolutionary France?'
Library Journal

'Josh Kendall's biography trace[es] an intricate career and vividly depict[s] the early development of this extraordinary, quirky mind . . . Roget's achievement was certainly unique, and now the story of this troubled life and how he overcame his demons comes as pure revelation.'
California Literary Review

'Joshua Kendall has written a fascinating account of Roget's life. The book is dense with details and cleverly organized . . .'
New Haven Register

'In The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus, U.S. journalist and word-lover Joshua Kendall tells the life of Peter Mark Roget, thesaurus-maker to the world, and tells it very well indeed. There are enough sidelines and footnote-candidates (Roget tested laughing gas on himself, noticed the visual persistence-of-memory phenomenon that eventually allowed the cinema projector to be made, and participated in the making of the slide rule), and Kendall is a good enough storyteller to keep the pages turning.'
Simon Winchester, The Globe and Mail