Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Robert Kanigel is the author of nine previous books, most recently Hearing Homer's Song: The Brief Life and Big Idea of Milman Parry and, before that, Eyes on the Street, his biography of Jane Jacobs. He has received many awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship, the Grady-Stack Award for science writing, and an NEH Public Scholar grant. His book The Man Who Knew Infinity was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; it has been translated into more than a dozen languages and was the basis for the film of the same name starring Jeremy Irons and Dev Patel. Kanigel and his wife, the poet S. B. Merrow, live in Baltimore.
Robert Kanigel's website
This bio was last updated on 03/26/2023. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
What, to you, makes a good story?
There has to be something beyond the bare facts, a larger theme, a natural flow with highs and lows, slowings-down and speedings-up. There has to be human conflict, people wanting something and not getting it, at least not right away.
Do you have any plans for a sequel?
Yes, it's something I've been working on for a while now. Right now I'm calling it Errors and Obsessions. The story picks up from Muddled in San Francisco, after my break-up from the woman I here call Maura. It's a tale of obsession, failure, and a kind of redemption, all built around a writing project I took on that I allowed to take me over, distort my life, and make me miserable, along with everyone around me, including my friends, my girlfriend, and my parents. I wound up in a psychiatric halfway house before finally deciding, quite consciously, that I would return to Baltimore. Baltimore had been so nurturing to me. It was the place where I grew into something like an adult, albeit a muddled one, and I needed to go back to it.
What is your writing process like?
Research the hell out of my subject, in every way I can imagine, then write. I usually try not to do any writing until I'm maybe 80 or 90 percent of ...
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.