Gulp by Mary Roach
Published 2013 · 348 pages · 70,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Nonfiction, Satire & Humor, Science & Nature
How hard is Gulp to read?
Gulp scores 17 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
- Digestive and biological terms explained with wit.
- Sentence structure: 22 out of 100
- Abstraction: 22 out of 100
- Concrete, physical subject matter throughout.
- Information density: 42 out of 100
- Dense with research but made light by humor.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Follows the alimentary canal top to bottom.
- Symbolic density: 80 out of 100
- Literal rather than symbolic.
- Ironic distance: 22 out of 100
- Deadpan humor about taboo bodily functions.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Each chapter covers its topic completely.
- Structural complexity: 18 out of 100
- Sequential chapters following the digestive tract.
How Gulp is regarded
Gulp holds a literary regard score of 36 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.