How long does it take to read Apollo's Angels?
a history of ballet
Jennifer Homans
Apollo's Angels by Jennifer Homans takes about 12 hours 19 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 12 hours 19 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2010. 672 pages, about 184,800 words.
25 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 20 hours 32 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 12 hours 19 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 7 hours 42 minutes |
The page count is the median across 5 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Unique among the arts, ballet has no written texts or standardized notation. It is a storytelling art passed on from teacher to student. A ballerina dancing today is a link in a long chain of dancers stretching back to sixteenth-century Italy and France: Her graceful movements recall a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, but her steps are also marked by the dramatic changes in dance and culture that followed. From ballet's origins in the Renaissance and the codification of its basic steps and positions under France's Louis XIV (himself an avid dancer), the art form wound its way through the courts of Europe, from Paris and Milan to Vienna and St. Petersburg. Jennifer Homans, a historian and critic who was also a professional dancer, traces the evolution of technique, choreography, and performance in clear prose, drawing readers into the intricacies of the art with vivid descriptions of dances and the artists who made them.
Subjects: Ballet, History, Dance, Ballett, Performing Arts, Ballet, history
