Among the 25 titles to Winchester's name there are books about skull collector Alan Dudley (Skulls), champion of Chinese science Joseph Needham (The Man Who Loved China), geologist William Smith (The Map that Changed the World), and the unhinged verbal genius William Chester Minor's role in the making of The Oxford English Dictionary(The Surgeon of Crowthorne); books that demand more than a passing acquaintance with phrenology, sinology, geology and etymology.
In only one scientific field – geology – is Winchester academically trained. And yet he has a magical ability to fashion popular narratives out of technical, in fact often quite obtuse, subjects – curiosities.
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