from jcbrunner

Simon Winchester delivers another biography about a British excentric, Joseph Needham, a Socialist, Morris dancing, nudist, free loving Cambridge biochemist who falls head over heels in love with a Chinese woman and in turn with her country and culture. His lover taught him Chinese which came in ...

from JDHomrighausen

Simon Winchester. The Man Who Loved China. 2008. This is my first audiobook. Winchester's book is a fascinating account of Joseph Needham, a Cambridge biochemist who fell in love with a Chinese graduate student. She taught him bits of her language, and through that he fell in love with her civili...

from pbjwelch

When I was a student at the University of Oslo studying Chinese, Joseph Needham used to come up to our department. As one of the few students with a car, it was my job to pick him up at the airport, ferry him about town, and generally take care of him. I was with him at the Viking Ship Museum in ...

from dele2451

A detailed, enthusiastic and well-written account of one exceptional British scientist who dedicated the vast majority of his extraordinary life to studying the inventions, technology and other significant accomplishments of China and then meticulously chronicling them so that the world at large ...

from etxgardener

Why is it that the English have produced so many brilliant eccentrics who are fascinating to read about? Who knows, but they make great subjects for books. Simon Winchester, who I know through his books on geological subjects from the explosion of Krakatoa to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake has...