No one-not Chloe’s brother, friends, or colleagues-understands why Chloe is so confused. And it’s no longer May she’s been transported back in time to March. Just days before the funeral, Chloe finds her mother unaccountably alive and well. Sadly, hours before she arrives, her mother passes away, leaving Chloe without a goodbye and riddled with grief and regret. 'Chloe Howard’s devotion to her job has come at a cost: spending time with the most important person in her life-her mother. But then Owen is discovered once again, and all bets are off.' - Booklist. He meets a boy named Clyde at school, and the two fall in love, despite Clyde’s dangerously homophobic father.

Managing to keep his physical anomaly a secret, Owen is at liberty to go to school and spend time on the shore of the Sound. But then an accident happens, Owen is discovered, and his mother drives him from their small Montana town to Puget Sound, where Owen will live secretly with his Uncle Bob and Bob's daughter, Tennessee. Finally having enough, he begins stealthily leaving the house. For the next 14 years, Owen lives secretly in his mother’s house, forbidden to so much as step outside, lest he be discovered. 'Seventeen-year-old Owen was born with a hole in his chest-no skin there, just ribs-and in that hole lives a talking java sparrow named Gail, who has been with Owen since he was five days old that’s when Owen’s frantic mother spirited him out of the hospital, away from what she called “the army of acronyms,” people who wanted to conduct experiments on the baby. Their balancing act between loneliness and love, absurdity and greatness, failure and success.'Seventeen-year-old Owen was born with a hole in his chest-no skin there, just ribs-and in that hole lives a talking java sparrow named Gail, who has. It brings the two eccentric geniuses to life, their longings and their weaknesses. Measuring the World is a novel of rare charm and readability, distinguished by its sly humour and unforgettable characterization.

And yet jumps out of bed on his wedding night to jot down a mathematical formula. He can run prime numbers in his head, cannot imagine a life without women.

Does not even need to leave his home in Göttingen to know that space is curved. Gauss, a man born in poverty who will be recognised as the greatest mathematician since Newton. Climbs the highest mountain then known to man, counts head lice on the heads of the natives.

Humboldt, a Prussian aristocrat schooled for greatness, negotiates savannah and jungle. Towards the end of the 18th century, these two brilliant young Germans set out to measure the world. The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss. Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment.

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