- Jubilee offer: spend £10 or more on any product sold by Amazon.co.uk on or before June 6 and you can buy The Diamond Jubilee A Classical Celebration Album for just £2.50 Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
Measuring the World
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Watch the author talk about this book in Windows Media
Player format: Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
Measuring the World has proved nothing less than a literary sensation... the novel has sold more than 600,000 copies in Germany, knocking J K Rowling and Dan Brown off the bestseller lists... it is the most successful German novel since Patrick Suskind's Perfume... 31-year-old Daniel Kehlmann is a literary wunderkind already being compared to Nabokov and Proust - Guardian
I felt so enlivened by reading this delightful novel, finishing the book with such good cheer and hope… the sense of boundless possibility, the excitement of discovery … optimism and hope … a wonderful novel instantly clamouring to be made my top choice - Sue Baker, Publishing News
Filled with wry humour and fascinating anecdotes, this is a warm, witty and ultimately tragic celebration of the many faces of genius - The Good Book Guide
In sparing prose Kehlmann cleverly combines a great enthusiasm for the Enlightenment spirit of enquiry with demystifying depictions of the individuals involved...Moving...Hilarious - Book of the Week - 5 stars out of 6 - Time Out
Kehlmann creates a comic and engaging narrative of two brilliant but eccentric minds struggling to make sense of the world...Plays cleverly with ideas about varieties of truth and the impossibility of reconciling them - The Sunday Times, Paperback of the Week
An entertaining jeu d'esprit with a sharp intellectual and satirical edge - The Sunday Telegraph
I felt so enlivened by reading this delightful novel, finishing the book with such good cheer and hope… the sense of boundless possibility, the excitement of discovery … optimism and hope … a wonderful novel instantly clamouring to be made my top choice - Sue Baker, Publishing News
Filled with wry humour and fascinating anecdotes, this is a warm, witty and ultimately tragic celebration of the many faces of genius - The Good Book Guide
In sparing prose Kehlmann cleverly combines a great enthusiasm for the Enlightenment spirit of enquiry with demystifying depictions of the individuals involved...Moving...Hilarious - Book of the Week - 5 stars out of 6 - Time Out
Kehlmann creates a comic and engaging narrative of two brilliant but eccentric minds struggling to make sense of the world...Plays cleverly with ideas about varieties of truth and the impossibility of reconciling them - The Sunday Times, Paperback of the Week
An entertaining jeu d'esprit with a sharp intellectual and satirical edge - The Sunday Telegraph
Sue Baker, Publishing News
...a wonderful novel...
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
29 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A book about marvels that is marvellous in the telling. Out of a seemingly unpromising scenario - two great scientists working in Germany in the early 19th century - Daniel Kehlmann weaves a hugely entertaining story that is also deeply thought-provoking. He writes with a witty, deadpan sort of style that reminded me a bit of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days; there is also a degree of sadness at the end - the book has a melancholic undercurrent. Humboldt and Gauss, the two heroes of the novel, are very different characters involved in very different types of scientific exploration (all of which is perfectly readable to a layman like me with little understanding of mathematics!), yet through these differences Kehlmann explores a time when scientific discoveries we take for granted today were still new, and makes us think about things that are still highly relevant today - not least the issue of fame and celebrity. The writing is wonderful, the characterisation superb, and the fusion of good story, thought-provoking ideas and human experience makes it a winner. A novel that shows you can be literary and intelligent while still being very readable and fun!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Earlier reviews posted here have been mixed, and I would readily concede that 'Measuring the World' is something a "Marmite" book. Personally, I loved it.
Kehlmann's writing is understated, easy to read and tinged with subtle humour. 'MTW' details the lives of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt, two brilliant but very different scientists. Both men are flawed, though often entirely unaware of their failings, and this lack of self-awareness generates much of the novel's humour. Gauss, depicted here as an aloof genius, and horrible to nearly everybody, hated travel and never left Germany. Most of his ground-breaking work was theoretical. Von Humboldt, spurred on by sibling rivalry, virtually circumnavigated the globe, measuring everything as he went. He was one of the world's pioneers of experimental rigour.
Kehlmann's prose has an a Teutonic efficiency to it, his tautly constructed sentences, rarely contain an unnecessary word, and the novel is devoid of embellishment. I think that it is this plain descriptive style that causes the novel to grate on some readers; everything feels very deliberate. For me though Kehlmann's prose cuts straight to the heart of his characters, stripping them bare, leaving little leeway for interpretation. Much like his character's scientific rigour, Khelmann is not one for ambiguity, which make Humboldt and Gauss seem rather icy and inhuman. This is balanced by the quality of Kehlmann's dialogue which is informative, expressive and at times very funny.
Above all 'Measuring the World' is novel about ideas, and the myriad ways in which people construct their own world view. It also meditates on the passing of time, and the melancholy of living out your the rest of your life, knowing that your best days are behind you. This book is not to everybody's taste, but if you have an interest in the history of science or like meandering in time's forgotten backwaters, then you will find much to enjoy in the pages of this mesmerising novel.
Kehlmann's writing is understated, easy to read and tinged with subtle humour. 'MTW' details the lives of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt, two brilliant but very different scientists. Both men are flawed, though often entirely unaware of their failings, and this lack of self-awareness generates much of the novel's humour. Gauss, depicted here as an aloof genius, and horrible to nearly everybody, hated travel and never left Germany. Most of his ground-breaking work was theoretical. Von Humboldt, spurred on by sibling rivalry, virtually circumnavigated the globe, measuring everything as he went. He was one of the world's pioneers of experimental rigour.
Kehlmann's prose has an a Teutonic efficiency to it, his tautly constructed sentences, rarely contain an unnecessary word, and the novel is devoid of embellishment. I think that it is this plain descriptive style that causes the novel to grate on some readers; everything feels very deliberate. For me though Kehlmann's prose cuts straight to the heart of his characters, stripping them bare, leaving little leeway for interpretation. Much like his character's scientific rigour, Khelmann is not one for ambiguity, which make Humboldt and Gauss seem rather icy and inhuman. This is balanced by the quality of Kehlmann's dialogue which is informative, expressive and at times very funny.
Above all 'Measuring the World' is novel about ideas, and the myriad ways in which people construct their own world view. It also meditates on the passing of time, and the melancholy of living out your the rest of your life, knowing that your best days are behind you. This book is not to everybody's taste, but if you have an interest in the history of science or like meandering in time's forgotten backwaters, then you will find much to enjoy in the pages of this mesmerising novel.
18 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I found this book distinctly odd. I don't know if if was by design but the translation into English left an unusual flavour in the mouth and to be honest, it made the reading a less than fluent affair. Having been advised by the jacket that the book induced hard laughter and the dialogue totally hilarious, I would have to counter that it never raised even a smile for me and the dialogue was merely unusual. Overall, the whole thing left me with the impression that it had only been translated word for word without any real understanding of English and that the differences in tone between the two languages were unaccounted for. My interest in what were two historical characters was lost in the process. The story lept through years in a swift and sketchy manner, a number of lesser characters were abandoned to their fate and the book tailed off in a very annoying fashion. Possibly in the original language (if you speak it) this book is everything claimed but for me it simply left the impression of having just read a book in german/english without really understanding it. Lacks foth fluency and a sense of humour likely to appeal to most English speakers. Two stars for oddity value and because I'm a sucker for historical fiction.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Excellent historical recreation
This is a book about "parallel lives": a man who never went very far from home and a man who travelled far and wide. Read more
Published 1 month ago by RAMON
Great read
Quirky syle and great story. Worth reading if you have any interest in Maths/Phyics and History of either. Easy read and educational too!
Published 3 months ago by Helen
mingling fact and fiction
Measuring the World is a somewhat fictionalised double biography of Carl Friedrich Gauss and Alexander von Humboldt. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Michael Gross
Measuring the World, by Daniel Kehlmann
An addictive read. Once you get into it it is difficult to put down. From an initial "heaviness" the quirky humour soon appears and that's it. Keep on reading!!
Published on 15 April 2010 by Little rock
A bit of a romp, but plenty of worthwhile information in here too
I found Measuring the World to be highly entertaining, and I feel that it has is sufficient authenticity to be described as "good enough" to give the readers a worthwhile insight... Read more
Published on 2 April 2010 by A Common Reader
Measuring the World
Enjoyable, clever book. Half way through becomes a bit monotonous.If you have enjoyed the South America writers some decades ago, you will enjoy the writing of this young author.
Published on 5 Aug 2009 by Panos S. Goumas
Delightful book
What is there still left to measure in the world today? Precious little, one might argue, except for things of infinitisemal size. Read more
Published on 23 May 2009 by Didier
Nice cover...what happened?
Grit and determination. That's what it took to reach the end of this book. I was inspired by the cover and the title as both suggested an adventure of scientific discovery. Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2008 by Alan J. Hodgson
best book in years
Ever wondered if there is german humour?
This is the best proof.
The book itself is not only highly enjoyable, but as well informative and intelligent. Read more
This is the best proof.
The book itself is not only highly enjoyable, but as well informative and intelligent. Read more
Published on 21 Aug 2008 by the V.
A good read that grabs the head rather than the heart.
Early on in the book i noticed that it seemed that the whole story would be related in the third person. I flicked through the book but found no evidence of any speech marks. Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2007 by P. Sharpe
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
