Mike Seabourne

Mike Seabourne is the kind of person who picks up a paperclip, wonders who invented it, and ends up three hours deep in nineteenth-century Norwegian patent law. Fortunately for everyone, he turned this particular affliction into a writing career.

Based in the United States, Seabourne writes narrative non-fiction about the hidden histories of everyday objects and the overlooked stories behind historical events. Numerous books in, his working theory remains the same: the most ordinary things, examined closely enough, turn out to be the most interesting ones in the room.

His books are written for curious people — readers who want serious research delivered without the textbook voice, who finish a chapter and immediately want to tell someone what they just learned. If that sounds like you, you are in exactly the right place.