The Professor & the Madman

The parts of this book related to the creation of dictionaries and the OED are hugely interesting and the stories of the two men are somewhat interesting to a lesser extent, but the author's conjecture and rampant speculation was infuriating. He suggests reasons for people behaving as they do without any hint of evidence, at one point positing a theory for why Minor commits a horrific act, but then immediately states that there is absolutely no reason to believe this is true! Then why even introduce the bizarre idea? A lack of footnotes/end notes crediting the sources for quotes he uses was also off-putting.

I also couldn't help thinking throughout that Minor's contribution and relationship with Murray were being exaggerated by the author for the purposes of a good yarn. Minor was just one of hundreds (thousands?) of contributors, and I suspect Murray corresponded and met with many of them over the years, not just the murderer.