Longitude

art is a process. that's the title of a blog.

i had to think of this line when i pondered on the key that differentiates a books and a really good books. i guess, the really good ones developed over a certain time. like the book i am reading these days. it's from Dava Sobel, “Longitude” – a scientific novel, about the search for the longitude, this measure that makes it possible for sailors (and for all), to define their position in the world.

here the author webpage, which has a focus on the book. dava sobel - click on “personal” on the right column for more about Sobel, she has an amazing biography, and in it, also writes about writing, here the passage:

“Someone once said to me, “I would hate your job. It's like writing one college term paper after another.” That's exactly what it's like, and exactly what I love best about it. People may have the impression that book tours and public appearances are the most exciting times in an author's life. I certainly enjoy those events, and am flattered both by my publishers' willingness to send me on tour and readers' eagerness to come hear me. But writing is really about sitting alone in a room, and the highlights occur in that room, with no one else as witness, in the small moments of the day when the work goes well.”

and here, a line from the book that made me smile, and think of 2028: “Cassini (one of the astronomers of King Louis XIV in France) also called on observers in Poland and Germany to cooperate in an international task force devoted to longitude measurements.”