How long does it take to read Zodiac?
the eco-thriller
Zodiac by Neal Stephenson takes about 5 hours 45 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 45 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1988. 314 pages, about 86,350 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 36 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 45 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 36 minutes |
The page count is the median across 17 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Sangamon Taylor's a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil -- all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long Taylor's house is bombed, his every move followed, he's adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI's most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate. Closing the case with the aid of his burnout roomate, his tofu-eating comrades, three major networks, and a range of unconventional weaponry, Sangamon Taylor pulls off the most startling caper in Boston Harbor since the Tea Party. As he navigates this ecological thriller with hardboiled wit and the biggest outboard motor he can get his hands on, Taylor reveals himself as one of the last of the white-hatted good guys in a very toxic world.
Subjects: Environmentalists, Hazardous wastes, Fiction, Fiction, technological, Fiction, thrillers, Boston (mass.), fiction
