December 14, 2010: "The Professor and the Madman," by Simon Winchester"

I just began reading this one, and it looks good.

I think the author's approach will resemble that of "The Devil in the White City," Erik Larson's story of murder during the 1893 Exposition in Chicago. Here, we'll learn about a murderer in a lunatic asylum and the preparation of the first edition of Oxford English Dictionary.

I guess the literary theory here is that good old murder lends juice to otherwise-dry topics.