Kristie and I were on our Christmas holiday, and I had finished my book before she had finished hers; I was going to read The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary after her. So while we were up at the cabin, I noticed that one of the books that they had on the shelf was Longitude; so I started reading. Wow! What a great book!
Dava Sobel takes a really could have been a dry story, and makes it incredibly interesting.
As the first word in the title suggests, the book is about how mariners managed to calculate longitude while they were on the high seas. The hero of the story, because there are heros and villains in the story, is John Harrison (My new hero). John wanted to create a special time piece that would help sailors keep proper time while out at sea. Up until this point (the late 1700's), clocks and watches were very unreliable as they often gained or lost time due to various issues such as temperature, friction, etc. But John had a vision of creating the perfect time piece.
Like I mentioned before, the hero was John, but there are many other characters that help weave this story into no only a good non-fiction book, but what could have been a story out of Hollywood: Villians (Maskelyne), Side kicks (William Harrison, Issac Newton, Edmond Halley), and Conspirators (The Board of Longitude).
I think that this book could actually easily be retooled to be a screenplay, and even a wonderful movie. Even if you're not interested in Longitude or any type of science, I think you will find this book a delight to read.
5/5
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