Reading Speed?

[Sweetpea]

Between 2 days or 2 months. Depends on the book and on my mood. Some books I just can't put away and will be finished within a few days, other books just don't read as fast, or I might not be in a reading mood. I usually read only 30 minutes before I drop off to sleep, with some infrequent minutes here and there.

[PurpleStar]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

It would be more informative to give the number of hours rather than weeks.

I remember the first Kindle ads about a device that had a battery that would last a month or two between charges, and then I discovered that was reading a half an hour each day.

Most people will read a book for several hours if they read at all. Of course if you are reading while riding on the train, it might be only half an hour.

Okay, I read probably about 35-40 pages an hour, so for 350 page book that would mean anywhere from 8-10 hours. But maybe more or maybe less, it just depends on how good the book is, or how many hours in a day I read.

[mr_nihilism]

By my estimates I'd guess roughly 5 hours. That's if it's not a real tough read and I'm into it.

[Jessica Lares]

30 pages per hour or more. Because I'm always backtracking and reading parts at least three times.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ApK

When people ask me how long I have been playing guitar, I used to respond "Do you mean in years, or in hours?"

I always said; "Well, I just sat down here 30 minutes ago, or so ... Oh! You mean in total?"

I have no idea how many hours it takes me to read a 350 page book. Because I haven't the slightest clue how many hours I read in a day/week/month. I just know I average about 3-5 books per month.

The book determines the speed, not me.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

...

The book determines the speed, not me.

^This

Some books are a faster read for me. I read a lot of non-fiction books. These take quite a while longer because I have a different reason for reading them. One is entertainment, the other in addition to being for entertainment, it is to learn something. For those I take more time because I read slower and re-read a lot of passages. On average, a 350-page novel would take me about a week provided I get in my 1 hour a day.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by FanciFreez

Just curious how long it takes for you devoted folks and bookworms lol. here to read a average book? average being 350 pages ..I know there are a lot of varibles, but curious of other enthusiasts habits of reading books, speed, time etc..

A paperback has 2400 characters a page on average. I've used this average to calculate the length of the books I have in Calibre, using the Count Pages plugin.

The KPW2 tells me that I will need about 9 hours to finish a book that has been counted to be 350 pages. This means I'll read about 38 pages an hour. As I read about 1-2 hours a day, I'll take 1,5 as an average, meaning that I'll read about 57 pages a day.

It comes down to it that a book of 350 pages will take me about 6.1 days to finish, on average, assuming I decide to actually read, which I don't always do. (This year, I've read less than I would normally do.)

Note that Count Pages skips whitespace, title pages, illustrations, and so on; a 350 page book according to Count Pages would probably be 375-400 pages as a real paperback. There aren't many paperbacks that start on page one with the first character and then just present a wall of text, without even a single line of whitespace, right through to the end

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

It depends if I have a toddler near by or not.

So, you sit in a chair, reading away happily, and suddenly... *poof!* There's a toddler there that slows you down, and after some time, it's gone again?

Cool.

You really must send a call to the Ghostbusters

[speakingtohe]

How are we calculating page numbers?
If it is ADE page numbers (approximately 366 words per page) then 3-8 hours. YA, Urban fantasy, light mysteries, favorite authors around 3 hours. For Non fiction 6-8 hours usually. Books that make me pause and think, or books that are vaguely discomfiting, 6-8 hours.

Paper book pages or GoodReads number of pages are higher (approximately 250 words per page for paperbacks) so of course one reads a page about 35-40% faster.

[pdurrant]

This thread from 2009 might be of interest.

I just took this test again, and my reading speed was 370wpm and 100% comprehension. In 2009 it was 411wpm and again, 100%.

So I'm around 400wpm, what that web site calls an 'auditory' reader, which seems right to me.

So a 350 page novel, being around 150,000 words takes me about 6 hours to read. Hmm... that seems a little slower than my reading record shows. So perhaps when reading my books instead of their test text I'm a bit faster.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

This thread from 2009 might be of interest.

I just took this test again, and my reading speed was 370wpm and 100% comprehension. In 2009 it was 411wpm and again, 100%.

So I'm around 400wpm, what that web site calls an 'auditory' reader, which seems right to me.

So a 350 page novel, being around 150,000 words takes me about 6 hours to read. Hmm... that seems a little slower than my reading record shows. So perhaps when reading my books instead of their test text I'm a bit faster.

Did the test mentioned in the other thread, at http://www.readingsoft.com/

Speed: about 300 WPM (I think I'd be faster when reading a "normal" text, that is not littered with percentages, abbreviations and stuff between parentheses.)
Comprehension: 100%

They state:

Research shows that reading is around 25% slower from a computer screen than from paper. This difference generally increases with increasing reading speed. Thus you may slightly increase your results to find your speed when reading from paper.

So, on paper, I would read about 375 words per minute, according to that site.

If one page contains 2400 characters (it does, because I set it as such in the Count Pages plugin), and the average word is 6 characters (I remember I read that somewhere, a long time ago), then there are 400 words on each of my pages.

A book of 350 pages would have 140.000 words. This seems to be quite close to pdurrants guesstimate of 150K worlds for such a novel.

Using the above test as a measure, it would take me 6.22 hours to read such a book.

That seems about right. Normally I'm slower, because I read a lot of fantasy; often flipping back to take a look at maps, and such, and I don't normally read "actively", to obtain the highest speed I can. I read much more leisurely.

I think the Kindle is about right with its 9 hours guesstimate (when reading leisurely), and the site is also about right with the outcome of 6.2 hours when reading actively.

[speakingtohe]

Hmmm... I read almost twice as fast on a computer screen as I do with paper or an ebook reader. 522 WPM from brainbench with 95% comprehension, and I was really trying more for comprehension. I can't see myself approaching this in an ebook or paper book.

I can't get the link to work for the test mentioned, but most online tests I get 480 WPM with again 95% comprehension. Obviously my comprehension is not all it should be.

Still though I can read faster on a computer screen, I don't get that curled up with a good book comfort thing.

Helen

[Grace Elliot]

Isn't it amazing, given the amount of reading I do - that I don't actually know how long it takes me to read a book. I can speed read - but don't enjoy doing it - I much prefer to savour the story.

[DiapDealer]

I was told there would be no math.

[Katsunami]

There isn't any. Just some trivial calculations.

[BeccaPrice]

well, it took me between 2.5 and 3 hours to read The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, which, I am told, has 181 pages.

There are some books I've been working on for months and am only part way through.