How long does it take to read Joan of Arc?
Joan of Arc by Helen Castor takes about 6 hours 36 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 6 hours 36 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2014. 360 pages, about 99,000 words.
14 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 11 hours |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 36 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 8 minutes |
The page count is the median across 7 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The acclaimed historian Helen Castor -- bestselling author and BBC broadcaster of She-Wolves, the story of England's queens before Elizabeth I -- returns with the incredible story of Joan of Arc, as only a biographer of Castor's enormous talents can tell it. Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman, a roaring girl fighting the English and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing apart fifteenth-century France. Here is a portrait of a nineteen-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior, leading an army to victory in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth that began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the savior of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who, five hundred years later, would be declared a saint. Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this startling new take on the medieval world. Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no one, not Joan herself or the people around her -- princes, bishops, soldiers, or peasants -- knew what would happen next. Adding complexity, depth, and fresh insight into Joan's life, showing her confronting the challenges of faith and doubt in a superstitious age, Castor's Joan of Arc is a rich history and biography that allows us to better understand this remarkable woman and her world. - Back cover.
Subjects: Women heroes, Soldiers, Women soldiers, Christian women saints, Biography, History
