Portrait of Simon Winchester, writer and journalist
Reading List
Simon Winchester
Writer and Journalist
Simon Winchester is a British-American writer who trained as a geologist and worked for two decades as a foreign correspondent in Belfast, Delhi, Washington and Hong Kong before becoming a full-time author of narrative non-fiction.
The Surgeon of Crowthorne (1998), published in the United States as The Professor and the Madman, told the story of the murderer who became one of the largest contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary; he returned to the dictionary itself in The Meaning of Everything. The Map That Changed the World (2001) recovered William Smith, who drew the first geological map of England. Krakatoa (2003) and A Crack in the Edge of the World put his geology to work on the 1883 eruption and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Later books range across the Pacific, the Atlantic, precision engineering (Exactly), the idea of land ownership (Land) and the transmission of knowledge (Knowing What We Know). He has lived in the United States since the 1960s and became a citizen in 2011.
Sister Carrie
by Theodore Dreiser
“Some people thought this was a book about nuns, but it wasn't. There is no nun-like behaviour in the book at all. Quite the reverse! Carrie goes to Chicago and falls in with a swell [a dandy]. He takes her on as his mistress, and her life is tremendously up and down. She has an affair with a man who is married, and is then taken to New York and lives in Lower Manhattan with a man who ultimately treats her badly.” — via Interview, January 2012
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson
“Yes, there is no Winesburg, Ohio. Most people think it is based on Sherwood Anderson's home town in Ohio, called Clyde. It is the most remarkable novel, written in 1919 so I think we are going to see some publicity when it celebrates its centenary. Once again, rather like Stoner, it dropped out of circulation for long periods. It was very modern and groundbreaking for its time, an entirely new form of writing.” — via Interview, January 2012
Crossing to Safety
by Wallace Stegner
“It is very sad, beginning with the death of one of the protagonists and how it ends is incredibly touching. Wallace Stegner is known as the great western novelist and is famous for books about Montana and the crossing of the west, most notably a novel called Angle of Repose which is an absolute classic. But in terms of human tenderness I find this particular book remarkable and unforgettable.” — via Interview, January 2012
Stoner
by John Williams
“This book begins in a similar way to O Pioneers!, with a hardscrabble farm in the same part of the world. It was set at the end of the 19th century and has nothing to do with being stoned. A lot of people think, "This is a novel about drugs." It is not at all! It is about a young man, William Stoner, who goes off to university at great financial cost and deprivation to his father, who is a pioneer farmer.” — via Interview, January 2012
O Pioneers!
by Willa Cather
“To me, Nebraska is a fantastically interesting crossroads, and a place where the east-west journeying of America is at its apex. You see the quintessence of pioneering in Nebraska. Willa Cather, who was born there but spent most of her writing life in New York City, felt a keen sense of nostalgia for the very hardscrabble life in the early pioneering days in Nebraska, and has written several books.” — via Interview, January 2012