Longitude

A story told well. That it's true, and had a huge effect on mariners, adds all the more to this "gem of a book" as the NY Times praised it.

Telling time and its relation to travel/navigation on the seas meant the difference between life and death. And now Walker & Company has brought back this book which it first published in 1995, in an affordable softcover, yet it still has a color signature featuring time pieces and artwork of the players.

If you missed the book the first time out, you can make-up for it now. You won't be disappointed.

Contents:

Imaginary Lines

The Sea Before Time

Adrift in a Clockwork Universe

Time in a Bottle

Powder of Sympathy

The Prize

Cogmaker's Journal

The Grasshopper Goes to Sea

Hands on Heaven's Clock

The Diamond Timekeeper

Trial by Fire and Water

A Tale of Two Portraits

The Second Voyage of Captain James Cook

The Mass Production of Genius

In the Meridian Courtyard

 

by Dava Sobel

184 pp., softcover