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9780008679507

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PRAISE FOR KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW: ‘An ebullient, irrepressible spirit invests this book. It is erudite and sprightly in a way that will be familiar to anyone who has read Winchester’s wonderful histories of the Krakatoa eruption, the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Atlantic (among others)’ Sunday Times ‘A book about transmitting knowledge by someone who has made his name by doing just that in the most erudite and entertaining way possible … 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 Times ‘From schoolhouses in ancient Sumeria and Aboriginal “songlines” to GPS, Wikipedia, Google and beyond, Winchester traverses the human history of information storage and transmission in a pageant of colourful, eloquent tableaux… Don’t pigeonhole Knowing What We Know as “information science”. Rather, think of it as an intellectual autobiography: one richly stocked, ever-curious mind’s account of the multiple ways in which stored knowledge may open the road to understanding’ Financial Times ‘Winchester is a knowledge keeper for our times, and he does us all a service by writing it down’ Wall Street Journal ‘[Winchester] might be appropriately dubbed the One-Man Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge of our own era. Whatever his subject, Winchester leavens deep research and the crisp factual writing of a reporter … with an abundance of curious anecdotes, footnotes and digressions. His prose is always clear, but it is also invigorated with pleasingly elegant diction … Informative and entertaining throughout’ Washington Post

‘As Simon Winchester writes in his delightful new book, The Breath of the Gods, these invisible currents of air shape our lives in myriad ways … a thoroughly enjoyable book, brimming over with historical nuggets and contemplations about the future’ New York Times ‘Epic … Winchester brings depth to the history of the wind … A splendidly written account of an unseeable force’ Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ‘Beguiling … [Winchester] conveys all this lore in prose that’s colourful and evocative … Readers will savor this’ Publishers Weekly ‘Big nonfiction books that explore the world through the lens of a single object or concept have been popular for decades … but few are as stirring as The Breath of the Gods … Winchester’s exquisitely clear prose leads us into a new understanding of a changing climate and the dangers ahead’ Boston Globe ‘Even when it’s a familiar topic, Winchester finds fascinating ways in … a great synthesizer of material … my copy is packed with notes on the extraordinary people and details he unearths … Winchester’s writing is a breath of fresh air’ Minneapolis Star Tribune ‘A prolific and bestselling popular historian, Winchester turns his attention to that most powerful of forces: the wind. With his signature entertaining erudition, he explores a subject that has powered the human world since our inception’ New York Times ‘Winchester provides an immensely informative and engaging biography of wind — meteorological, literary, philosophical — from milling grain to the battle of Salamis to climate change across the globe’ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ‘A former reporter, Winchester can find a good story anywhere, and his range is enormous … This time he takes to the air with a study of the phenomenon that shapes Earth’s climate and influences human history’ NPR.org

Author Information

Simon Winchester is the bestselling author of ATLANIC, THE MAN WHO LOVED CHINA, A CRACK IN THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, KRAKATOA, THE MAP THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, THE SURGEON OF CROWTHORNE (THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN), THE FRACTURE ZONE, OUTPOSTS and KOREA among many other titles. In 2006 he was awarded an OBE. He lives in western Massachusetts and New York City.

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