I gave it a 5

I just got home from book club, where I learned that I was not alone in my very mediocre assessment of The Madman and the Professor by Simon Winchester. The woman leading the discussion asked everyone to rank it on a scale of 1 to 10. The highest it got was a 6. A few people gave it a 3. I was right in the middle with a 5. In other words, don't rush out and buy it. I think the general conclusion was that it was an interesting story that didn't necessarily need to be stretched into a whole book. One woman summed it up like this: "It should have been an article in the Smithsonian magazine". Next up: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. This time I will go search the English book stores in Basel right away rather than waiting until the last minute, discovering the book our book club is reading is not available in Switzerland, and asking a friend from the US to buy it and mail it to me!