A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks

Published 2009 · 392 pages · 131,179 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Satire & Humor

How hard is A Week in December to read?

A Week in December scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 42 out of 100
Financial jargon, British social vocabulary, and diverse registers.
Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
Clear prose across multiple storylines.
Abstraction: 45 out of 100
Questions of finance, faith, and modern Britain.
Information density: 55 out of 100
Dense with contemporary London across classes.
Narrative indirection: 40 out of 100
Multiple perspectives illuminate different Londons.
Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
The week, the dinner, London itself carry weight.
Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
Faulks's social satire is pointed.
Resolution withholding: 40 out of 100
Threads converge at dinner; consequences clear.
Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
Multiple storylines across contemporary London.

How A Week in December is regarded

A Week in December holds a literary regard score of 48 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

Sebastian Faulks