How long does it take to read Lethal Passage?
Lethal Passage by Erik Larson takes about 5 hours 4 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 4 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1994. 276 pages, about 75,900 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 26 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 4 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 10 minutes |
The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
One bitter cold morning a sixteen-year-old boy named Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 - touted by its manufacturer as "the gun that made the eighties roar" - stuffed in his backpack. By mid-morning he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another. Only sheer luck kept his rampage from becoming one of the worst in America's long and bloody infatuation with guns. By tracing the history of the Cobray from its design and manufacture to the final, illegal transaction that placed it in Elliot's hands, Lethal Passage provides a stunning expose that will completely reframe the debate surrounding America's gun crisis. Erik Larson immersed himself in America's gun culture. He learned to shoot and to appreciate the sheer fun of the sport, and he even acquired a federal gun-dealer's license. In following Elliot's gun, he uncovered the lax regulations and skewed interest that have perpetuated handgun violence, which has grown to account for 22,000 deaths and thousands more injuries every year. He questions the political and economic forces that allowed the Cobray - originally designed as a battlefield weapon - to be marketed to the public. And he explores the broader cultural forces that nurture our fascination with violence and make gunshot death a routine feature of American life . Compelling, balanced, and timely, Lethal Passage pinpoints one important source of the violence. The Brady Bill may help reduce firearms violence, but its recent passage is only a small step toward stemming the unimpeded flow of guns to America's new generation of killers. Erik Larson offers realistic solutions to a crisis that has now reached epic proportions.
Subjects: Social aspects of Firearms, Murder, Social aspects, Gun control, United States, Case studies
