How many books do you read a year?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I think at least some of the "61 or more" landslide-majority have to be reading on someone else's dime (not that I wouldn't if I could).

I'm self-employed, so it's my dime anyway
But I think, if reading is one's hobby, 3 to 5 hours per day can be invested without much troubles.
If you read every single day, you've got more than 5 days to make 61+ books per year. Say an average of 4 hours per day and you easily should finish the average book in that period.
BTW: I'm mainly reading at night, thanks to Kindle Paperwhite and Kobo Aura HD. Typically from 2am (heading to bed after this post, it's 1:25am now in Germany) to 5am. Then I get up between 9am and 11am - whatever my biorhythm and my wallet dictate.

[DiapDealer]

Don't misunderstand: I'm not questioning any one individual's ability to consistently read that much. At all. I'm only questioning that the vast majority of people who responded to this thread (or all others like it) do so. Like I said; second place is never even close. But perhaps I'm looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps most of the people who do read less (and I know you're out there) just become more reluctant to respond once they see where they fall on the scale.

[Bittybye]

61 or more. I can usually read a full length novel in a day or several shorter stories. I don't read everyday but I usually get through 5 books a week.

[meeera]

This year, I'm on track for 250 by the end of November. That includes a couple handfuls of novellas and graphic novels.

I read fast; always have.

[AnemicOak]

336 so far this year. That's counting audiobooks (listen pretty much every day) and about 20 novellas.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Don't misunderstand: I'm not questioning any one individual's ability to consistently read that much. At all. I'm only questioning that the vast majority of people who responded to this thread (or all others like it) do so. Like I said; second place is never even close. But perhaps I'm looking at it the wrong way. Perhaps most of the people who do read less (and I know you're out there) just become more reluctant to respond once they see where they fall on the scale.

Maybe the scale just doesn't go far enough to show granularity at the high end?
That big "cluster" might be a spectrum that runs from 1 book a week plus one extra on holidays to 1 book a day. The cluster might spread out into a distributed bell curve...
...Or maybe we'd only hear from retirees.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Maybe the scale just doesn't go far enough to show granularity at the high end?
That big "cluster" might be a spectrum that runs from 1 book a week plus one extra on holidays to 1 book a day. The cluster might spread out into a distributed bell curve...
...Or maybe we'd only hear from retirees.

I'm inclined to believe people based on the general consistency I've seen in discussions.

A lot of people do the reading challenge thing and it seems that they are pretty honest about it and mention adjusting their goals downwards more often than upwards. Most are thrilled if they are approaching their goal which for most was initially 100 books AFAIK.

I've actually only read one post where I doubted the truthfulness, and that was possibly a typo. I've down that myself often enough.

As to retirees, I am semi retired, I work 5-6 months a year. I probably read a bit more when I am in a working period because it is my favorite way to unwind after work

I don't have a commute where I work, except to get on a plane and go there for the duration. When I was working in the real world, I often read two books a week just on the bus.

I can read more books when not working but seldom do.

Helen

[HYPE]

About... 20? I wish I had the time to read more.

[Yapyap]

Lots of people watch 3-4 hours of TV a day, every day, and people don't tend to suspect they're doing it out of work time.

Why should it be so hard to believe that on a forum made up mostly by people for whom reading is important enough that they even buy e-reading devices there would be many people who can spend 2-3 hours a day on reading? Some people have long commutes and get an hour in already while on the move; others just prefer reading to, say, watching TV in their "how to unwind after work" routine.

And to any average-speed reader, 2-3 hours of reading (fiction) a day should translate to 2-3 books a week, at least if they mostly read 300-500 page fiction books instead of only reading 1000-page books or more complex non-fiction.

80-100 books a year for someone who likes to read, reads at an average speed (say 50-60 pages an hour - there are plenty of people who read faster than that) and reads every day sounds just about right to me. I don't really see what there would even be to be suspicious about, really.

Obviously not everyone does that - plenty of people who like to read also like to watch TV or have family duties taking up most of their evenings or just like to take breaks between books, etc - but again, on a forum with mostly avid readers, 61+ books a year (a book a week plus ten more) is hardly shockingly much or a reason to doubt.

[DiapDealer]

Any average speed-reader? Is that really a thing?

Oh, never mind... transposed the hyphen.

Originally Posted by Yapyap

And to any average-speed reader, 2-3 hours of reading (fiction) a day should translate to 2-3 books a week, at least if they mostly read 300-500 page fiction books instead of only reading 1000-page books or more complex non-fiction.

I'm just not sure that math adds up for me. I read about 2.5 hours per day. I read fiction. I don't consider myself a slow reader or a fast reader. I read just about right, I think. Granted, a lot of the books I read fall into the 500 - 700 page range (ADE-based pages), but still ... I rarely hit the book-per-week mark (let alone 2-3).

Maybe seeing some ADE page-based numbers would help me. It's very possible that the elusive term "book" is what's skewing my perspective.

Don't worry. If it turns out that I'm just a terribly slow reader after all, I'm not going to lose much sleep over it.

[Atunah]

I don't know what ADE based pages are. . I read pretty much only books, no short stories and pretty much no novellas. Just average sized books that go from mostly 350-500 pages with the occasional 800 pagers thrown in and some in the 300 range.

I agree with someone up thread, folks sitting watching TV, be it shows or sports for hours, don't get that "look" like readers do. But then its always been like this for me. When someone asks me what my favorite hobby is and I say reading, I get blank looks.

I am not a fast reader or a slow reader. I can read a book in about 4 hours I think. I don't really time myself but the paperwhite with its nifty time left in book function comes handy to get an estimate. To read 150 a year that is less then a book every 2 days. That is less than 2 hours a day of reading.

But I looked at this thread just being a fun poll and on a board with gadget hoarders build for mostly reading, I would expect folks to well, read a lot.

[ProfCrash]

I believe that folks read that much. I have no problem believing that. There are books that I can read in a few hours, YA type, and others it takes me a week. The Dresden type books take me a day. If I had four hours a day to read, I would easily be on the high end. I hope that people who don't read as much are comfortable posting. The number isn't important, I work with folks who think my reading a couple three books a month is a lot.

[Russell Brooks]

I'm struggling through number 5 for this year. Looks like I'll end on that one.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Atunah

I don't know what ADE based pages are. .

When you open an epub in an ereader that uses the Adobe RMSDK for rendering (which is quite common) and it tells you how many "pages" the book has. That's what I mean by ADE-based pages.

I track my reading on GoodReads and I always select the edition of the book where the page-count most closely matches the page-count given by my ADE-based reader (because it amuses me to do so). And while my "book" count places me in the very high end of the 25-36 range, my total page-count divided by 350 (an "average" book I hear) puts me very solidly in the middle of the 37-48 camp. *shrugs*

For the record, I never accused anyone of being dishonest. My points are that:

1) I just don't believe that the landslide-majority of MobileRead members reads 60+ books per year (especially when the curve drops off a cliff when going below 60). I can only assume that the people who read less just aren't as inclined to take part in this (and possibly any other) poll. For whatever reasons. Maybe the vast majority of the 150 most-active MobileRead members read that much, though. I could probably accept that.

2) "Book" isn't a very useful term for the discussion of how much one reads.

But whatever. This was a obviously intended as a light-hearted poll and I can't possibly continue what I started as a light-hearted questioning of the results without coming off as a d**k. So I'll stop. Even though it's probably way too late to avoid the d**k label.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm just not sure that math adds up for me. I read about 2.5 hours per day. I read fiction. I don't consider myself a slow reader or a fast reader. I read just about right, I think. Granted, a lot of the books I read fall into the 500 - 700 page range (ADE-based pages), but still ... I rarely hit the book-per-week mark (let alone 2-3).

Maybe seeing some ADE page-based numbers would help me. It's very possible that the elusive term "book" is what's skewing my perspective.

Don't worry. If it turns out that I'm just a terribly slow reader after all, I'm not going to lose much sleep over it.

If those figures are accurate, it does sound as if you're a slow reader (and that's absolutely not a bad thing, let me hasten to add!). 2.5h a day is 17.5h a week. If we consider that an average novel can be read out loud (ie as an audiobook) in about 10h, the fact that you're not reading a book a week in 17.5h suggests that you're reading considerably more slowly than you'd read a book aloud. Vocalising a book generally slows down reading, but in your case perhaps it might speed it up?