Reviews for The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus

The average rating for The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-05-27 00:00:00 Mary Kay Parkinson Did you know that Peter M. Roget invented the slide rule as well as creating the book that is synonymous with synonyms? He lost his father at five. His mother was overprotective and bat-shit crazy. Roget was an emotional wreck who forwent participation in society in favor of observing, listing, and organizing things. Kendall crafts a highly readable narrative. "Unlike Girard and his successors, Roget aimed not to explain or prescribe the use of the words. Rather, he felt he just needed to list all the options."

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-18 00:00:00 Michael Yu If I hadn't just read The Last Man Who Knew Everything Thomas Young, The Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick, and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, Among Other Feats of Genius, this book would have been more impressive. As it was, both authors wrote books about British polymaths who were doctors, made breakthroughs in their medical fields, made contributions to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and were linguistic pioneers. Of the two, however, Thomas Young seemed to be more worthy of the title "polymath". Kendall's book about Peter Mark Roget, best known as the creator of Roget's Thesaurus, is an awkward, choppy read. The book has a non-linear chain of events with a very linear plot style, which makes it difficult to parse through. Roget himself was a difficult, complicated man, and while Kendall tries extremely hard to make him a sympathetic character, he's ultimately unsuccessful. It's clear that Kendall has a tremendous amount of appreciation for Roget; unfortunately, he didn't convince me why that appreciation was warranted. Having said this, though, this is definitely a book that I'd like to re-read in a few years *without* having read Robinson's book. I have to admit that my review of Kendall's book was definitely influenced by having first read the biography of Young.