Ebook fans who read slowly

[astra]

1 book - 4 weeks

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by astra

1 book - 4 weeks

Yep, that's about my speed also.

[astra]

I read abou 1 hour before I go to bed and 1 hour during day time.
I read double of that over weekend. Although my books are usually thick bricks. I read mostly fantasy and on average every book is about 1000-1200 Sony Reader pages with base font size 10.

It is the main reason why I cannot afford to re-read, only on very rare occasions, like right now...Robin Hobb. It is also the reason for me to read only finished series. Naturally I would forget most of what happened in a book which 1-2 years between instalments and I cannot re-read.

[DixieGal]

Originally Posted by astra

I read abou 1 hour before I go to bed and 1 hour during day time.
I read double of that over weekend. Although my books are usually thick bricks. I read mostly fantasy and on average every book is about 1000-1200 Sony Reader pages with base font size 10.

It is the main reason why I cannot afford to re-read, only on very rare occasions, like right now...Robin Hobb. It is also the reason for me to read only finished series. Naturally I would forget most of what happened in a book which 1-2 years between instalments and I cannot re-read.

I believe I would read books faster if I had more time also -- and could stay awake. Seems like I can't stay conscious past 5 pages anymore. Weekends offer even less reading time, because my darling Social Butterfly (a.k.a. im) keeps me on the go go go.

This weekend, we are going to a performance of The Magic Flute on Friday evening, then getting up before sunrise and driving the motorhome to a state park. It's only a 2 hr drive, and I'm sure he will talk nonstop the whole way, and I try very hard not to shush him, even though I would like to be reading. He's the love of my life, and I try really really hard not to rain on his happy little parade, even if he is like a nonstop chihuaha jumping and yipping around me in circles.

Then we will be adventuring in the Great Outdoors until one or both of us get injured or snakebitten or fall over a cliff. No time for reading when one is being medivaced out of a ravine. Then back home Sunday in time to drag our sorry carcasses to bed, before starting the work week over again.

It's hard to work a book into that schedule of chaos and mayhem. But it's never dull, that's for sure!

[Wario]

I find it funny that, I have two jobs, working 56 hours a week, plus 3-4 good TV programmes to watch. Plus all the other little things in life, and still able to finish a noval in a week time. I am turning to an addicted, even now I wan't to pick up my ebook that on my desk, still calling me.

I read at work the most of the time (I know I should be working but can't help it). Even after work I would read for a few hours more (really got to stop that, it affect my dreams).

More I think about it not sure if I am fast reader, may be it the amount of time I have been putting into reading.

[cassle]

Bob, I think you're not alone at all! I feel the same and I'm sure enough to say that many people feel the same too! Well, I read those academical books much faster than reading a novel. But I read a novel faster than a comic! It's quite hard to read a comic especially those with many panels and I sometimes get confused on how they arranged. Anyway, I'm happy that some people feel like I do. I'm so sorry that sometimes I can't read all post in this forum and just give a quick reply.

[AnotherMichael]

If the book hasn't got any content then you can read it fast. That's reading and forget, because the next book is waiting.

But there are other books and you need your entire life to read them. It's like read one sentence and try to be with this one sentence the whole day. And if you reach the end of this book, you can start again at the beginning. But this time it will be not the same.

There are a bunch of books that are like this. Then you can read all of them the same time because what they try to say are all the same. But from different perspectives.

Truely personal books.

[RWood]

My Father would go to the local bookstore every Friday between work and home and buy a selection of paperbacks published that/issued that week. Mostly these were pulp type books like the Mike Hammer, Spenser for Hire, Matt Helm, etc. He would easily finish three or four in the weekend and a few more as the week went on. His favorite activity was relaxing on the couch reading a book and watching a baseball game.

I did pick up a few of his habits, when I watch TV with my wife it is almost always with a book in hand. I will still read about four or five fiction books a week although as others have noted the books tend to be longer today than they were a while back. Also, non-fiction books take a lot longer to digest than fiction does. One recent rainy Saturday I skipped all other work and just read three books with only bathroom and food breaks. (All of them from MobileRead's free download section.)

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by RWood

... as others have noted the books tend to be longer today than they were a while back.

I've really noticed this when unpacking some of my older books. I have a marvelous collection of science fiction from 1960-1980, and the books are quite a bit thinner than today's novels. The print is smaller, which means more words per page, but also the stories are just shorter. We had a discussion in another thread about whether the trend to longer books was good or bad. Regardless, because of the great discrepancy in the size of books and wanting to be able to make valid comparisons from year to year, I started keeping a record not only of the books that I complete, but also the number of pages read. For electronic books, I use the pagecount from the most recent edition of the book (mass market paperback if available).

[kevindorsey]

As long as you enjoy reading the book, it doesn't matter how long it takes to finish it.

[Daithi]

I'm guessing that I have an average reading speed. I too am shocked at how quickly some people can read, but then again I seem to put away a lot of books during a year.

I like reading the Y/A books -- Twilight, Vampire Acadamy, Harry Potter, etcetera. One of these kinds of books with around 700 pages takes me 2-3 days to finish. Right now I'm reading The Stand by King and after 4 days or reading I'm only about 20% through it. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand took me 2 or 3 weeks to read. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner both took me forever to read (probably because I didn't care for them).

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by RWood

...One recent rainy Saturday I skipped all other work and just read three books with only bathroom and food breaks. ..

I did this two weeks ago with the first in the millenium series. Took about 14 hours.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

I did this two weeks ago with the first in the millenium series. Took about 14 hours.

For three months, while a computer system and hosting facility was being made redundant through migration to the new, I "supported" this system by myself for about 12 hours a day. Aside from "start-of-day" and "end-of-day", bunging on the occasional half-inch tape and occasionally resetting a MUX channel left a hell of a lot of time for reading.

Cheers,
Marc

[MoboHobo]

For me, I am one of the slow readers. I get distracted too easily although I admit that ever since getting an E-Reader, I have certainly been reading way more then I wold be with a regular book.

[yekim54]

Originally Posted by Elsi

My family accuses me of ignoring them when I'm reading, but it's just that I learned to tune out all distractions when reading.

I'm just the opposite. I need a quiet place to read because I can't tune out distractions. When I was in college, my roommates would study while watching TV in our apartment. I, on the other hand, spent many nights studying in the solitude of an empty classroom on campus.