The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
Published 2006 · 75,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · History, Nonfiction, Politics & Society, Science & Nature
How hard is The Ghost Map to read?
The Ghost Map scores 19 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. 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: 28 out of 100
- Medical and historical terms. Clearly explained.
- Sentence structure: 25 out of 100
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- Science history grounded in specific events.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Rich historical detail compressed effectively.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Linear detective-story structure.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The map as symbol of data-driven truth.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- The establishment's confidence in a wrong theory.
- Resolution withholding: 80 out of 100
- The pump handle is removed. The mystery is solved.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Chronological narrative with contextual chapters.
How The Ghost Map is regarded
The Ghost Map holds a literary regard score of 40 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.