Longitude by Dava Sobel
Published 1995 · 50,000 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · History, Media & Technology, Nonfiction, Science & Nature
How hard is Longitude to read?
Longitude 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: 32 out of 100
- Horological and nautical terminology. Accessible.
- Sentence structure: 28 out of 100
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- Technical concepts grounded in historical narrative.
- Information density: 48 out of 100
- Compressed. Dense with history and science in 184 pages.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- Chronological. Direct storytelling.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Harrison's clocks as symbols of craft versus institutions.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Quiet irony about institutional resistance to innovation.
- Resolution withholding: 100 out of 100
- Harrison's partial vindication provides bittersweet closure.
- Structural complexity: 22 out of 100
- Chronological with technical interludes.
How Longitude is regarded
Longitude holds a literary regard score of 47 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.