Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky
Published 2017 · 1,024 pages · 250,000 words · about 17 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Psychology, Science & Nature
How hard is Behave to read?
Behave scores 40 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: 52 out of 100
- Neuroscience, endocrinology, evolutionary biology, and genetics terminology throughout.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Multi-level biological explanation requires sustained abstract thinking across disciplines.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- Extraordinarily dense with research findings across neuroscience, genetics, and behavioral science.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Direct exposition organized by timescale. Sapolsky is transparent about his structure.
- Symbolic density: 100 out of 100
- Scientific argument throughout. No symbolic ambiguity.
- Ironic distance: 25 out of 100
- Sapolsky's humor and occasional anger provide some distance from the heavy material.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Each chapter resolves its timescale. The conclusion synthesizes without withholding.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Organized by timescale (seconds to millennia). Complex but clearly structured.
How Behave is regarded
Behave holds a literary regard score of 52 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.