Rating: 
Summary: Came Back to This One
Review: I had not read this book before, but the spate of great popular science writing and the success of books like Sobel's Galileo's Daughters, Johnson and Coates' Nabokov's Blues, and John Glenns memoirs especially as they recounted his pioneering space exploration brought me back to this book. Much like Glenn's book, its amazing you can take something as simple as figuring out how to draw a line on a map, or man's desire to put a man on the moon and end up with such fascinating accounts of man, his dreams, and the lengths he will risk to achieve them. Of course, Sobel is a great story teller and while Glenn's narratives are current enough for us all to "vibe" with them, Sobel has had to recreate a sense of the history and persons who people his book. Some people have liked this book more than Galileo's Daughter but they are really two different kinds of books. Longitude is a great retelling of a carefully researched "niche" in the history of man's quest for technological achievement while Galileo's story (much like Nabokov's) is the retelling a story from different point of view. This has been a great year for popular science writing.
Rating: 
Summary: So disappointing!
Review: The author picked a fascinating topic, did tons of research, and set out to write a popular book. But she doesn't do justice to the human stories, and doesn't adequately explain the technology. So I couldn't really feel the frustration of the struggling inventor and couldn't appreciate his ingenuity. All I got was a clear sense of the importance of longitude - and the desire to read a better book about it.
Rating: 
Summary: A good popular history
Review: I enjoyed reading this very much. The author calls it a popular history. Being accustomed to reading books on history, I would call this more of a light history. That is it's not too bogged down. It reads easily and quickly. It uses the facts, but focuses more on personality. I would have given it five stars, except that, the paperback version at least, didn't have any illustrations or diagrams. This made it difficult for me to visualise how each clock differed from the last, and what made them work.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but could have been fascinating
Review: I've never spent much time wondering about measurement of distance or the development of timepieces, but I am interested in learning new things in almost any subject. So when I saw this book, my interest was piqued. I looked forward to a fascinating story of the solution to the puzzle of longitude. Although that information was provided, I was somewhat disappointed. The stories of the problems caused by lack of ability to locate outselves on the ocean were fascinating, in a terrible way - people who ventured onto the seas were almost surely doomed, unless they found land by a lucky fluke. But the story of the development of the solution to that problem was told in such a dry way that I felt little of the same excitement. I wanted to know more of why Harrison's opponents felt as strongly as they did, and why he didn't pursue the reward that was so clearly his. The cover blurb indicated that this would be the story not only of the development but also of the competition, in human terms, but that wasn't the case. I learned a lot, but missed the excitement of learning. And I definitely feel that the book suffers mightily by lack of any illustrations at all. For technoboobs like me, with no knowledge of How Things Work And Why, illustrations, diagrams, photos, are essential to understanding. I understand that later editions of this book include illustrations - I read it in 1996. Perhaps the author has also seen fit to include more information about the human side of the project. Either way, though, the subject is interesting, so I can recommend it for that.
Rating:
Summary: a gem
Review: I first heard about this book from an interview on 'Booknotes.' The story seemed intriguing.The book was no disappointment. The paperback addition of this title fits in the palm of one's hand much as one of the later chronometers must have. The story telling is fine-tuned -- filled with tiny jewels of information. The author gives us a concise, and entertaining account of the politics surrounding one man's life-long attempt to gain recognition for his outstanding accomplishments.
Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful, matter-of-fact history
Review: Dava Sobel wastes no space in this concise record of a very specific set of historical occurences. Without ever becoming dry, she sets out the facts as she has gathered them, never elaborating with florid turns of phrase or unneccessary conjectures of any sort. I had no particular interest in clock-making, John Harrison, or longitude before reading this book, yet she held my attention throughout the work. Thanks to her, I now plan to visit the Old Royal Observatory when next in London, and I certainly plan to read her latest work, "Galileo's Daughter."
Rating:
Summary: Stupid is as stupid does
Review: After reading the previous review with its typos and bad grammar, and considering the giving of five stars to a book he hated, I was reminded of the saying "stupid is as stupid does." Sobel wrote a great book...period.
Rating:
Summary: This book was so stupid
Review: This book was so stupid. During the wholwe book it was so boring. People built clocks throught he whole book. This book is more like a reference book then a novel. Grade A garbage
Rating:
Summary: A book that shows the worth of a watch in the 1700s
Review: The book, Longitude, I thought was a good book for anyone who loves history. Even though the cover shows that the book is about John Harrison, the book also tells of many other clock makers of his time, and how they all competed to win the longitude prize. The book tells of many of the problems that clockmakers faced and how they solved them to make a good, reliable, seaworthy, and correct clock and the price of doing such a feat. I would recommend this book to children 12 and up, or to one who has an interest for history. the reason I gave it 3 stars was because it was a little dull to read.
Rating:
Summary: A really interesting read.
Review: If you never knew before what a major problem it was before the world knew how to measure longitude (and I certainly didn't), Dava Sobel tells of both the problem and the man who finally solved it in this easy-to-understand and interesting book. Meet John Harrison, the clockmaker/genius who fights the British scientific establishment to prove his method of measuring longitude does work. I found this book to be a quick, interesting read on a topic, and a man, most people don't know anything about, but should.
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