Simon Winchester has gotten a LOT of positive reviews of his historical books.
- The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
- The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
- The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
- A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906
- The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
- Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883
And he's got a couple of travelogues as well.
- The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time
- Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
- Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles
- Pacific Rising: The Emergence of a New World Culture