Excellent ... Garfield, an Englishman in his early 60s, is lucid, witty, learned and clearly a bibliomaniac ... In All the Knowledge in the World, he has produced a lively threnody to the encyclopedic impulse, or the powerful desire to grasp and encapsulate everything that is known within a single book or set of books ... A lively threnody may seem an oxymoron, but Mr. Garfield both loves encyclopedias and bewails their demise.
Simon Garfield offers a delightful curated sampling of what seekers before and after Diderot have tried to actualize ... Playful ... Garfield writes with characteristic humor ... Garfield’s deep dive into encyclopedia-making would merely involve summarizing scholars’ studies on the subject, which he acknowledges often and with reverence, if it did not also spotlight some of the wonderful, eccentric personalities that animate this history. However bookish knowledge can be, Garfield counters this tendency with a light and personable touch.
