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Title: Measuring the World

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Daniel Kehlmann

Narrator: Rider Strong

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 10 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-30-06

Publisher: Phoenix Books

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 67 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Toward the end of the 18th century, two young Germans set out to measure the world. One of them, the Prussian aristocrat Alexander von Humboldt, negotiates savannas and jungle, travels down the Orinoco River, tastes poisons, climbs the highest mountain known to man, counts head lice, and explores every hole in the ground. The other, the barely socialized mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to prove that space is curved. He can run prime numbers in his head. He cannot imagine a life without women, yet he jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula.

Von Humboldt is known to history as the Second Columbus. Gauss is recognized as the greatest mathematical brain since Newton. Terrifyingly famous and more than eccentric in their old age, the two meet in Berlin in 1828. Gauss had hardly climbed out of his carriage before both men were embroiled in the political turmoil sweeping through Germany after Napoleon's fall.

Already a huge best seller in Germany, Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new talent on the international scene.

Critic Reviews:

"Brilliant." (Kirkus)

"Measuring the World has proved to be nothing less than a literary sensation." (The Guardian)

"Notable for its brisk pacing, lively prose, and wry humor...which keenly complements Kehlmann's intelligent, if not especially deep, treatment of science, mathematics, and reason at the end of the Enlightenment." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

Extremely disappointing - please avoid

I was hugely disappointed with this book - as it had been given fantastic reviews (especially in Europe where I live).

There is no clear point to the story, there are no climaxes, it ends very very strangely - and the narrator keeps a monotone voice throughout.

I'm baffled - and I just don't get the point what the author is trying to tell....

Interesting but confusing

This is a fascinating story but the fact that it's translated I think led to some confusing passages. The narrator also didn't delineate the characters well, which sometimes made it harder to follow who was speaking and what was going on.

Love it

I find the story gripping and entertaining. Not being Gauss, I didn't count the large number of times I laughed aloud while listening to it. The narrator isn't my favorite narrator, but he does a good job. There are problems with the translation that bug me, but I ignored them and was thoroughly entertained and even somewhat educated by this novel. I rarely write reviews, but upon finding two reviews that trashed it, I thought it my duty to toss in my 2 cents.

Give this a berth -- a wide one

I heard the author reading parts of this and it sounded excellent. The narrator, Rider Strong, reads the book as though he is reading it aloud for the first time and clearly has yet to learn what a full stop and a comma mean. I want my credit back.

I agree with Henrik.

He said it all. Do not waste your time.