A profound & delightful jeu d'esprit of a book mixing biography etymology cultural history & quixotic scientific experiments Aldersey-Williams pulls the unfairly neglected yet enormously influential writer Thomas Browne out of the obscure pages of Pseudodoxia Epidemica & into the 21st century to apply his generous curiosity & rational intelligence to the vagaries & contradictions of life today Browne has had some impressive fans (Sebald Woolf Borges Poe Marias) but this book will revive him bringing his extraordinary genius to a whole new audience