How fast do you read?

[BrotherBenny]

Question's in the thread.

I read about 90 pages an hour without interruption, so I get through the average Star Trek book in 4-5 hours, which in turn allows me to read several books a week.

That said, non-Trek TPBs take me longer to read and I usually get through those and books with smaller print at a speed of about 60 pages an hour.

How fast do you read?

 

[Thrawn]

I'm pretty similar, and I used to finish a book almost every day or two, but now I have a job teaching high school and it's quite the time suck. I end up finishing 10 books a month now, give or take.

 

[JoeZhang]

Trek books are like fast food, so there is generally nothing difficult to think about or re-read - so maybe two hours, three tops.

 

[Technobuilder]

Honestly never timed myself, but I know It took 2 days to finish Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (Mostly because I made myself stop half way through it, so I'd have something to do the next day)

I remember doing the Original Ender Quartet in about 3 Days total.

Trek Books can be read in less than a day if I want to burn the time and the money, however I like to stretch them out to fill in the times when I'm in-between other activities, waiting for something, or just taking a break at work, as they're easy to "jump in & out" of.

I'm reading Vanguard: Precipice right now and I'd be done if I didn't keep stopping myself every few chapters.

Oh course I'm also one of those mooks who likes long series so I can fly from one right into the other without a year between books.

 

[Tirius]

It depends on the book. I typically read medium-sized books in a single session, buying them on the way home from work and then reading the entire evening. It depends on the quality of the story if I put it down when I should go to bed or if I keep reading into the night...

I remember the last Harry Potter book. I ordered it online while a friend got hers from the store on the (satur)day it came out. She got her book at 10 AM, and finished at 9 PM, while I got mine at 4 PM (**** that delivery man! ) and read until 2:30 the next morning. My friend kept teasing me endlessly...

If I know beforehand I won't finish in one session, I tend to read a lot less per day. It took me a few weeks to get through each of the Wheel of Time books, though I did read them back to back. I'm not sure if my actual reading speed was less though.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Slowly.

 

[AdmiralSteven]

It depends on the book. On my hour long train ride into the city, I can average about 20 to 25 pages, not much compared to some people, but that's fast for me.

 

[Nardpuncher]

I read Q Squared in one day, but that took pretty close to the whole day...finishing at 3AM.

I usually read on the subway and for 20 minutes before bed, so it can take 5 or 6 days like that to finish a 350 page Trek book.

I stared The Dark Tower series on November 17th and am half way through book 4 right now. Stephen King seems easier to read than some things. I read Sense & Sensibility a few months ago and that was a slow read because of the way Austen writes where I understood the plot, but some of the exposition on character's feelings and motivation was unclear to me. Sentences from that time seem to be a lot longer than are used now.
I would say I'm a careful reader, in that I must remember who everyone is and what all place names are referring to. That's why I feel daunted when I start a fantasy book. I worry that the author will introduce too many characters and places and all that, and that later I'll get confused.

 

[Kira Nerys]

It depends on how interesting the book eventually turns out to be.

 

[Fer]

Not fast enough for my liking.

If left completely alone and completely ignoring all my friends, family and housework, I can finish most Trek books in about 2 - 3 days. But that is a rare, nay, freak occurrence.

More realistically, it takes me about 10 days- 2 weeks. So I'm lucky if I can get in three books a month. Which really frustrates me, because there are a lot of books I'd love to read, and I never can keep up with everything I want to read.

 

[tmclough]

I'm a slow reader. It typically takes me about a month to read a ST novel, give or take. Of course, some are easier, hence quicker, to read than others. For example, it took me almost 5 months to read both volumes of The Eugenics Wars, but it only took me about 1 week to read Encounter at Farpoint. (Actually, that was a re-read, as I had originally read it over 20 years earlier.)

As I wrote in the "Pet Peeves" thread, I have a lot more unread ST books than read--it's a lot easier, and quicker, for me to buy a book or two (or several) than it is to read those books.

Part of the reason I'm a slow reader is that my mind easily wanders off-topic, thinking often about problems in real life. Also, the Internet doesn't help my concentration--I'm always thinking of things to look up online. Of course, another reason I'm a slow reader is that I'm just a slow reader in general. However, at least for that they say the more you read, the faster you'll get (within limits, of course).

 

[iguana_tonante]

For narratives, usually I read around 50 pages/hour. Not especially fast given the speed of some people here, but it's ok.

Of course, it sharply depend on the topic: for scientific papers, where I have to read and think about every single sentence, compare results, and follow diagrams and plots, I can be as slow as 10 pages/hour.

 

[AnyStar]

when it comes to novels i read very slowly, i like to play it out in my imagination as i read.

 

[JD]

On average it takes me about 2 weeks to get through a 300-500 page book, but since I usually read two or three books at one time you need to mutiply it by that number. I'm actually reading six books right now ( I didn't do it on purpose, I just kept finding books I wanted to read) so I've been on the same books for a while. I'm almost done with three of them, and I've decided that once I'm done with them, I'm never going to read more than three at once because this is taking me way to long to get through the books.

 

[seigezunt]

I'm much slower than many of you guys. But then, with a toddler to take care of, I usually only have a couple hours a day at most in which to read, and I generally fall asleep reading, so I have to backtrack a bit.

Also, I'm currently doing a project of watching the rest of the ST TV franchise that I missed at the time of initial broadcast (I'm up to season seven of DS9 and season two of Enterprise) in order to better enjoy the relaunch/Destiny books. Once I'm done with those, I will have more reading time.

and I don't watch any TV from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown.

So that said, it takes me about a week to finish a 250-page ST book. Which is much faster than my usual reading (but then my usual reading has been fairly dense, largely traditional Jewish texts and history books.)

 

[Smitty]

I am one of those that takes weeks if not a month to read a star trek book. Non-star trek longer. I would not say I read slow, but the time I have to read is limited. But still, if I had a 3-4 hour block to read I do not know I could either sit still long enough to do so or that I would not get tired eyes and sleepy.
I envy those that can sit for many hours and read without stopping. A gift that must be.

 

[Radio Cicero Rockettes]

I usually read narratives at a speed of roughly 100,000 words per hour. Technical material and information I need to cross-reference is read rather slower.

 

[AdmiralSteven]

On average it takes me about 2 weeks to get through a 300-500 page book, but since I usually read two or three books at one time you need to mutiply it by that number. I'm actually reading six books right now ( I didn't do it on purpose, I just kept finding books I wanted to read) so I've been on the same books for a while. I'm almost done with three of them, and I've decided that once I'm done with them, I'm never going to read more than three at once because this is taking me way to long to get through the books.

6 books at once?! Wow, I don't think I could read that many at once and keep up with all the plots.

The most books I've read in the shortest amount of time was 6 books in a month and a half. I was reading for the 2 hours on the train each day, giving up my morning paper, plus my hour lunch.

 

[Paris]

I usually read narratives at a speed of roughly 100,000 words per hour. Technical material and information I need to cross-reference is read rather slower.

100,000 words PER HOUR ? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that roughly 28 words per second? Is that even humanly possible? Maybe 10,000 per hour, but 100,000 is just insane! You should contact the people over at Guiness World Records. That has to be some kind of speed reading record...

As for me...

It really depends on the book, my available time, and how interested in it I am. Right now I don't have that much reading time, so I only read a few chapters a day. When Kirsten Beyer's VOY-R book Full Circle came out, I was able to polish it off in about 48 hours because as my level of interest was so high. Same with DRG3's Serpents Among the Ruins, Christopher's Ex Machina, KRAD's Diplomatic Implausibility(24 hours) as well as KRAD's A Singular Destiny(24 hours).

 

[Tara]

I usually read very quickly--usually, I can get through a 70,000 novel in a four hours if all I'm doing is reading (for example, travelling on a flight to California or the UK). However I only really have a chance to read while commuting on public transport, in the bath, or in bed. So it takes me a week or so to get through a book (tho I may have 3 books going at once--one in my purse, one next to my bed, etc.).