Among the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers – 2025 Best Reads #10

I’ve been ranking best reads of the year since 2017. Here’s what I wrote by way of criteria from that first year:

Since everyone else is doing their end-of-the-year list, I decided to join the fray with a Heartlands Best Reads of 2017.  Some caveats: These are books I read in 2017, but they weren’t all published this year.  2017 books did get some extra points in the ranking, however.

Also, I’m not making any allowance for genre.  Fiction, non-fiction–theology and journalism–cats and dogs living together–it’s one big, unruly house on my nightstand.

And it still is in 2025. I have my favorites certainly–regional fiction, theology, poetry, anything set in Texas–but I’m a magpie with generous taste.

So let’s jump right in with what is now an oldie-but-goodie. Longitude by Dava Sobel came out in 1995 to great acclaim, but I just got around to it as part of an annual reading challenge I do with my wife and daughter. (Shout out to family reading challenges–they’re the best.)

As the title suggests, this book is about the pursuit of a reliable method for determining longitudinal position and the invention of the very idea of longitude. Sobel has an efficient, graceful way of telling the tale, which involves all kinds of arcane 18th century British societies like the Board of Longitude and the positively Potter-esque Worshipful Company of Clockmakers.

There’s the usual petty politics and insider intrigue, but also the heroic persistence and exactitude of one John Harrison who, (spoiler alert), solves the problem with an exquisite clock that could survive the vicissitudes of seafaring. Actually it takes four models and over forty years to achieve the task, but Sobel makes it a very enjoyable ride.

Adrift in a sea of books that go nowhere, Longitude earns its journey and makes it in as #10 on this year’s Heartlands best reads.