Talk about versatility. Simon Winchester is clearly, from an authorial perspective, a jack-of-all-topics. Consider his two previous national bestsellers: 1998's The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary (19 weeks on PW's lists) and 2001's The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology (four weeks). Now Winchester examines the cataclysmic 19th-century explosion of one of the world's great volcanoes in Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded—August 27, 1883. (Movie buffs may recall the 1969 film version: Krakatoa: East of Java, considered to have been a, well, mountainous flop.) Winchester was interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, with a Diane Rehm Show set for next month. Print coverage has been extensive and diverse, and the author's tour stops include several museums and libraries, along with bookstore appearances. HarperCollins reports 135,000 copies in print after two printings.
With reporting by Dick Donahue
