Excellent.

Simon Garfield offers a delightful curated sampling of what seekers before and after Diderot have tried to actualize.

Lively and informative.

Witty and geekily eclectic.

Few books begin by drawing the reader’s attention to a general lack of enthusiasm for their subject matter. Simon Garfield’s good-humoured history of the encyclopedia does just that.

Fans of Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman and readers who don’t mind plenty of intriguing digression will devour it..

Quirky and entertaining.

A wealth of research wrapped into an eccentric, charming package.