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charlotta58's review
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I would have given the book a higher rating if I had been able to grasp the science involved, but regrettably I didn’t. I think that was all due to my brain not working well enough, I just could not concentrate and hold it all in my head, and keep it straight. So that ruined my enjoyment of the book. Mostly due to my brain injury, I think. Some people will fined the science difficult, many will not.
sara_shocks's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.0
wild that people signed up for sea voyages before accurate longitude could be calculated!
agmaynard's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This is an inspirational book, about people who kept improving timekeeping and related functions until they were truly usual. Written in an appealing way, with real-life characters to root for.
midwifereading's review against another edition
4.0
I took one star off si.ply because her writing is, at times, a little dry. However, the fascinating story behind the mastery of measuring longitude at sea is dramatic, inspiring, and utterly fascinating! Greenwich and the Maritime Museum are on my bucket list!
heathersiddoway's review
3.0
3.5/5
The Wright brothers of clocks
Really interesting just a little dry of a read
The Wright brothers of clocks
Really interesting just a little dry of a read
soniagracelm's review
4.0
The story was interesting, the history well-researched, and the subject fascinating. Dava Sobel did a good job of explaining celestial navigation and the importance of longitude in a way that conveyed the urgency of the problem. Granted, I already knew how to use a sextant, so I'm not sure it would be quite as understandable to a complete layman, but it seemed fairly transparent to me. My only quibble was that the flow of the story was a little off. It read like it was trying to be a smooth pop-history, but it erred a little heavily on the side of history, rather than pop. On the plus side, this means that the history was really good, but it was a little dry at times. Overall an excellent, quick read. I loved the poem excerpts at the beginning of each chapter, it helped show how widespread knowledge of the search for longitude was.
aligrint's review
3.0
I think that this book really picked up in the end - for quite a while it seemed to be floating in details and personal conflict without enough personal description to make you care deeply.
The points about how the Longitude Act would transfer ownership of the design could have had a really interesting segue into how governments in general fund and use R&D - stuff like how France bought early photography technology and freely licensed it to its citizens - could have been fascinating.
The points about how the Longitude Act would transfer ownership of the design could have had a really interesting segue into how governments in general fund and use R&D - stuff like how France bought early photography technology and freely licensed it to its citizens - could have been fascinating.