How Fast Do You Read?

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Lord Tyrion

Well-Known Member
Oct 24, 2013
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I've seen people say that they read books at a very fast rate which blows my mind (80 a year? =O). By the end of the year, I will have read 8 books for 2013. 11/22/63 took about 2 months. Granted, I watch a lot of TV shows and played a lot of video games which I plan on scaling back.

How fast do you read books? Any tips for those of us trying to speed up?
 

MadamMack

M e m b e r
Apr 11, 2006
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UnParked, UnParked U.S.A.
It depends on how busy life is for me, but usually one book every week, week and a half.
Ditto . . .and the book that I'm reading. I only watch a limited amount of TV and most shows are recorded, so I can skip commercials. Reading is something I do everyday. Often I can get in a good hour or two. I read in silence so that my concentration is focused on the tale. It's like meditation.
 

notebookgirl

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Oct 8, 2013
858
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Somewhere over the Rainbow
I use to be much faster without the kids. I am slower because I have to fit reading in now. I try to do something every day. If it's not print, it's audio. However, I have adopted a man's honored tradition. Take my book with me in the bathroom. With the kids, it's sometimes the only way to get some alone, reading time. The kids and husband just have to wait... :m_walk:
 

Dana Jean

Dirty Pirate Hooker, The Return
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Apr 11, 2006
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I can read very fast if the book gets ahold of me, you know, sinks its teeth right down to the marrow. I will fly through a book. Also, if the author is smart enough to make chapters short, oh wow, I can read a huge book in a couple days. It's just so easy to look and think, only a couple more pages and I'll stop on this chapter. And you get there and see the next chapter is short, so you think, okay, one more chapter. And so on and so on and so on. Before I know it, I'm hooked and I'm sailing through it.
 

SharonC

Eternal Members
Jul 9, 2007
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Canada
That's
I can read very fast if the book gets ahold of me, you know, sinks its teeth right down to the marrow. I will fly through a book. Also, if the author is smart enough to make chapters short, oh wow, I can read a huge book in a couple days. It's just so easy to look and think, only a couple more pages and I'll stop on this chapter. And you get there and see the next chapter is short, so you think, okay, one more chapter. And so on and so on and so on. Before I know it, I'm hooked and I'm sailing through it.
That's usually how I do it too. The better the book, the faster I read. If I can't physically take a lot of books, I have my Kobo. If I'm in bed with the lights out, the ipod is firmly in my ear with some talented reader taking me off to dreamland. I have my tv programs to watch, but I usually PVR and cut commercials to save time because frankly, with the drivel that they call tv these days, my program list is not very long.
 

notebookgirl

Well-Known Member
Oct 8, 2013
858
4,940
Somewhere over the Rainbow
I can read very fast if the book gets ahold of me, you know, sinks its teeth right down to the marrow. I will fly through a book. Also, if the author is smart enough to make chapters short, oh wow, I can read a huge book in a couple days. It's just so easy to look and think, only a couple more pages and I'll stop on this chapter. And you get there and see the next chapter is short, so you think, okay, one more chapter. And so on and so on and so on. Before I know it, I'm hooked and I'm sailing through it.
I also do that. I can get really involved and pretty much start sneaking away to read it. My eyes start to read faster because I want to get a particular answer or finish a section. I wish I was one of those people who say they savior books. Like you, If it's really good, there is no way I am going to read a little bit. I want to know what happens so then I go on a binge. Audiobooks are easy to do this. I can walk around and do tasks with my headphones in. I have been known to not want to stop and ended up driving around and going into stores trying to finish the book. However, one audiobook I was reading, "Dolores Claiborne" decided to stop and not restart on the last few chapters. I was so mad, I went to the bookstore. Had my son play with the train while I read the last few chapters.
 

The Nameless

M-O-O-N - That spells Nameless
Jul 10, 2011
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The Darkside of the Moon (England really)
However, I have adopted a man's honored tradition. Take my book with me in the bathroom. With the kids, it's sometimes the only way to get some alone, reading time.

Ah yes, to us every book is a "bog book".

I am a slow-poke when it comes to reading, I never willingly read anything really until my mid 20s, and was an autobiography. I never started reading novels until 2010. I don't always read every day, so on average a 400 pager will be more like 4-5 weeks. 11/22/63 took me about 2.5 - 3 months (keeping in mind days when I don't read, or nights when I fall asleep after 4 or 5 pages. That said though, I am getting trhough Joyland quite fast, only started it about 2 days ago and I'm 105 pages in.
 

Walter Oobleck

keeps coming back...or going, and going, and going
Mar 6, 2013
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There are a number of locations on-line where one can maintain a record of what one reads...sites that have libraries of information about books and you can add a book if they don't have it listed, as I have done at one site. There one can also date a read and if you've been reading for a number of years, it is interesting to look back. Unfortunately, for some years, everything is a blank...while other years, the memory is as alive as yesterday. Last year I surprised myself by reading something like 180+ titles...the most of any year...and included in that 180+ are long reads like James Jones's, From Here to Eternity, that I read from 4-11 DEC, a solid week/828 pages...or The Woman Chaser, Charles Willeford, that I read in a day or less/192 pages...or Jonathan Franzen's, The Corrections, that I read 26-29 JAN, four days/610 pages.

This year I've read 92 (my goal is a hundred)...in 2010 I read 96...2011/125...but for some years, I can only remember reading 8 books for the year. Half the battle is knowing what to read...I wish I had access to the information I have access to now, back when I was lost in the library, pulling books at random from the shelf...few of them had snazzy dust-jackets...just a name and a title. I don't think it matters how fast you read, as I've also been rereading some of the titles I read way back when...Steinbeck's, East of Eden, his The Winter of Our Discontent...and heh! It's funny what one remembers from the first pass through...me, almost nothing...although in that last from Steinbeck, one of his characters writes the time on a block of wood (in his mind) and tosses it into the black water...the time he needs to get up and get going. I've been doing that ever since...and rereading it this past year was a hoot as I didn't recall reading that until I read it again in the story. Funny what the mind remembers.

“the thing about books is, there are quite a number you don't have to read.”
--Donald Barthelme, The King
 

fljoe0

Cantre Member
Apr 5, 2008
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I have been a slow reader, I like to stop and look around during the journey. I do listen to audiobooks during my commute and that speeds things along, but sometimes my mind will wander off on a tangent and I realize I missed a portion of the story and I have to hit rewind! I probably go through 25 books a year.

I can listen to audiobook driving on the interstate but not in traffic with lights and pedestrians. I find myself having to rewind if I'm driving anywhere that has traffic lights.
 

Winter

Well-Known Member
Apr 12, 2013
999
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...it's not a race, everyone sets their own pace and thier own savor of word flavor...to paraphrase...it's a journey not a destination...
You're quite right...and I can never really explain why I feel proud that I read very fast. In actual fact its annoying. I never have a bunch of books waiting, I find something new I want to read and its gone by the end of the day....but a journey, not a race. Couldnt agree more.