Finished it this morning at 4:30 AM. Pretty interesting, especially with my interest in geocaching. I'm the only person that has checked in out in the fourteen years our library has owned the book. I am saddened.

Read to see if it would be a good book for the coming school year (astronomy or geography). The overall story was there: Harrison spent his entire life trying to win the Longitude Prize, despite being thwarted at nearly every step. However, there were so many extraneous details that it made it difficult to follow.

Will probably include in the book list because it was a short read, and explains the reasons behind the establishment of the Longitude Prize, in addition to what methods were used to determine latitude and longitude at the time.

This could have been a dry discussion of the mathematics behind determining a position on the globe, but mercifully, it's not. A fairly by-the-numbers (ha) telling of the history of humble John Harrison and his attempts to build the ultimate shipboard chronometer. Not a can't-put-it-down read, though some of this is due to the gaps in the history. Adhering to the known facts, there's not a lot of personality showing through in this book: it reads like a longish encyclopedic entry.

It’s a nice book, very interesting topic. But I got this years ago and had to start it again before I ever finished it. But it’s really interesting!

This is a great book about the search for the key to unlocking the mystery of finding longitude in navigation. The author does a great job describing just why this is a problem and what the world stood to gain once this mystery was finally unravelled. I particularly liked how the author showed the personalities of the different people involved, without creating a work of historical fiction. I thought her method of briefly describing her sources and showing the difference between what we do know because of surviving records, and what is only speculation added to my interest in the book. I see other reviewers thought this detracted from the book, but I found this information refreshing and fascinating. Granted, I was a history major in college, so that sort of thing is right up my alley... but I really enjoyed learning more both about this episode in history as well as how we know what we do know about it. And it is remarkable just how much documentation still exists, even though the events in this story happened in the mid-1700's.

My 11 year old daughter read the book and enjoyed it greatly too - we had some fun discussions about it and she found the book engaging and engrossing - so much so that she read it in about a day and a half!