I recently finished The Man Who Made Lists by Joshua Kendall about the life of Peter Mark Roget and I don’t know what to say exactly.
I was hoping this book would be a kickstart to me to attack the pile of language books I have languidly lying around my bookshelves, but not so.
From the first pages, I was writing “awwwww” in the margins because the front and back sheets are his handwritten list of animal names in Latin and English.
The book goes through his biography, and I don’t like how it’s written, like the author had a Pastwatch-esque ability to know where Roget is looking and what he is thinking as he walks down the road or in the middle of a meeting. I know there are records and he could have explained it after the fact, but I just don’t buy it and it distracts me to throw in details about the buildings he passes and their little histories. [and then suddenly…]
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November 18, 2009