The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
Published 2014 · 380 pages · 90,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Journalism & Reportage, Nature & Environment, Nonfiction, Science & Nature
How hard is The Sixth Extinction to read?
The Sixth Extinction scores 26 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: 35 out of 100
- Scientific and ecological terminology. Accessible.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Abstraction: 32 out of 100
- Science concepts grounded in specific species and locations.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense with scientific evidence and environmental reporting.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Each chapter follows a species. Direct.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Each species symbolizes a mechanism of extinction.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Controlled alarm. Matter-of-fact about catastrophe.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- No resolution. The extinction continues.
- Structural complexity: 25 out of 100
- Thirteen chapters, each focused on a species.
How The Sixth Extinction is regarded
The Sixth Extinction holds a literary regard score of 55 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.