I’ve been perusing book channels looking for reading suggestions, and I’ve noticed some of those YouTube host saying things like, “Yeah, back then I was reading a book a day”. One guy claims to have read 164 books in a year, so that works out to a little over a book every two days, chain reading style.
I gotta wonder, I usually need something like a couple of weeks to read a fair sized book end to end. And that’s how I define having read a book, end to end. I never claim to have read Return of the Native because I got bored midway through, and gave up. So, no, I haven’t read it if someone asks.
So I look at people with humongous book counts with a little skepticism. Did they really read said book? Or did they just skim through it real quick? Maybe just picked through a few chapters? Just to say you read it?
This even happens in books themselves. In A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Francie checks out books from the library, big adult ones, and claims to read them in a week.
How do you define having read a book? Do you count stuff you didn’t complete? I don’t. If I say I read it, I read it, Forward, Introduction, and all.
I used to read voraciously. A thick book would take 2-3 days and then I would start the next one. So over 100 books a year for a few decades. Now I barely read books anymore. This happened in the last 10 years.
Teddy Roosevelt was a bit of a speed reader and would read at least a book a day. Quite amazing actually. So his count must of been crazy high. I’ve read there were periods of his life where he would read 2-3 a day.
As to defining reading a book, I would say it means reading every word in every chapter but Introductions, endnotes and dedications are optional. Though I admit on rereads of The Lord of the Rings, I often skim the poems and songs.
I don’t find it unbelievable to read an ordinary sized novel in a day. It only takes me a few hours to get through the average book. These days, I just don’t have a few hours to spend, so it takes me approximately a week, stealing a half hour here, ten minutes there.
Throughout school, from maybe 4th grade on, I read one or two books a day, every school day. In grammar school, of course, the books were short. In junior high, the librarian was clearly skeptical and began asking me how I liked the books and was pretty surprised I was finishing them and could discuss them.
Being a nerd, I clocked it, and throughout school I read at about 100 pages an hour, and since books were shorter back then, that meant I could knock out Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber in a couple of hours, or Asimov’s Foundation in under three.
I’ve slowed down in adulthood, but still, I’ll finish my 3rd book this week sometime today, and I started it last night. ETA: According to my Kindle app I’ve read everyday for the last 62 days.
Oh, and to answer the question, I define reading a book as having read it in the usual way. If I find myself skimming, it usually means I’m not interested, not gleaning much, and it’s time to put it down.
I read most of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, hating every minute of it, until I got within ten pages of the end. At that point I finally wised up and tossed the thing away…I’m not sure if I could say I read it, but I definitely know I don’t want to.
I have always been a fairly fast reader. I could read books about dinosaurs before I went to kindergarten, and when I was around 6 or 7 years old I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in one sitting (it took a couple of hours). I can read most books in an hour or two, though I am slowing down a bit as I get older since I need to wear glasses now and that seems to slow down my reading a bit.
I don’t skim and I don’t pick through chapters. If I read a book then I truly do read it from cover to cover.
I don’t read word by word, I read groups of words, if that makes any sense.
I have started many books and abandoned them after a few chapters. I don’t count those as having read the book. Even if I got more than halfway through I wouldn’t consider it “read” unless I actually finished it.
I read the Hobbit in a day but I had a hard time with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I thought they were a bit boring and it was hard for me to concentrate on them. I also skimmed the poems and songs. But I still count those as “read”.
Well, as reading all the words in it, at whatever speed.
If interested enough, I can easily get through a novel in less than a day, mystery novels often in a few hours. Badly written books including historical works I’ll give up on partway through without claiming to have read them, though I’m not above the occasional nasty online review.
Reading the book from start to finish. My mother used to read books the way some people today interact with their devices, ie, every waking moment that she’s not required to be doing something else. Easily did a book every day or two.
Count me in as a formally voracious reader. When I was younger an had the time I easily read complete books in two or three days if they were interesting. Now I am good if I read two books a year thanks to work and the damn internet taking up more and more of my time.
Part of it may be that I don’t find much new and exciting anymore. When I was young reading about other peoples lives and far away places was interesting, now I know more than I want to about other peoples lives and have been to the places I only used to dream about. Up to a couple of years ago I used to read the newspaper everyday but now its all on my phone.
And then there is this place that takes up much of my reading time. So books, not so much anymore. They’ve been replaced by other forms of media.
And reading a book is cover to cover, no exceptions.
Reading a book is completing the book, usually including any forward or introduction but often not the afterword, acknowledgments or endnotes. I don’t skim, but I do read groups of words rather than each individual word. There have been times in my life when I have read more than a book a day - say, 10 a week. But those were times when like @Richard_Pearse’s mother, I was reading whenever I wasn’t required to be doing something else so I was reading 4-5 hours a day and more on weekends. It’s not that hard to read a book a day if you are a fast reader and spend that many hours a day reading - I was spending upwards of 40 hours a week reading. And really, that’s kind of how you have to look at it - not how many days or weeks does it take you to finish a book, but how many hours of reading. Because “two weeks” could be 30 minutes a day - which is less total time than I used to spend reading on a Saturday.
Wanted to touch on this point first before giving my OP - these are re-reads, which I absolutely put in a different category (as do the posters involved I believe). When I’m re-reading a book, I am generally reconnecting with a character or a world I loved -OR- I’m reading something fun that is easier to put down because I have read it before. Such as on a car ride, plane, or before bed. In these circumstances, I’m likely to skip a chapter here or there if it isn’t developing the characters/world/story.
When I’m reading a new novel (fiction specifically) I’m a reader who does and wants to ‘hear’ the words in my head, which slows my reading, which is still plenty fast, in the realm of a page a minute, so historically I was burning through a new book of 400ish pages in 7-8 hours. When I was younger (read, didn’t have to earn my own money, work, cook for myself, etc) I’d go through a book a day or more on summer break, and about half that during the school year. Used bookstores were my friends!
And I’d define reading a book as the introduction (if any) and the entire text of the book itself. Sometimes if there was an appendix of note, or afterword of note, but some books had interviews with authors which I could take or leave. Acknowledgements and dedications are also optional, because they may be important to the author, but not to me.
Just to clarify, mine wasn’t a re-read. I have only read the Lord of the Rings trilogy once. I wasn’t that impressed and don’t have a desire to re-read it.
Sometimes I’ll read a fair-sized book in a day or two—if it’s an absorbing read and I have a lot of time to spend reading during that day or two. Other times it’ll take me a couple of weeks, or more, to get through a similar-length book.
And yes, I wouldn’t say I read it if I didn’t get all the way through it and absorb it all (not necessarily counting appendices, end notes, etc.).
If I listened to it as an audiobook, I’ll also count it as a book I’ve read, if I paid attention all the way through.
Similar to other posters, back when I had time and interest, I usually read about a book a day. My limiting factor was more finding a book to read than actually reading it.
Even well into adulthood, I’d usually spend a day off catching up on reading. Working a bunch definitely slowed things down, as well as various social functions, and then the internet came along…
I did get a little reading in during the COVID shutdown, but it was hard to get back into it.
Now I’ve got 3 books that have been sitting there, waiting to be read, for well over a year now.
And I define reading a book as cover to cover, though I will admit that sometimes I did skim poems or songs, and only really went back to reference them if they had some relevance.
“Read a book” means the complete body of the text. Acknowledgements, appendices, etc. might be included but aren’t required.
FTR: Same whether I’m reading with eyes or ears. My wife and I read books to each other on long trips in our salad days, and now use audiobooks. They all count for me.
Depends. Novels, “reading” is cover to cover. Poetry means “read the poems that grabbed me, may have skipped some clunkers.” Non-fiction for work (I’m a historian) “read” means have grasped the book’s main argument and familiarized myself with the sources and methods, may have skipped expository bits. This often means spending more time with the introduction and conclusion than on a particular chapter. It may be more like strip-mining a book, but if I can talk about it at a conference or seminar, it counts as “read.” Non-fiction for fun, “read” means cover to cover with some skimming or skipping over the bits that drag.
I envy people who can read a book that fast AND get any sort of comprehension or enjoyment out of it. It’s a gift. I usually read a chapter a day of the book I’m currently reading, for relaxation before I turn the light off. So, it takes me as many days to read a book as there are chapters, and I feel I’ve given myself enough time to immerse myself in it.
And if I don’t finish a book, I haven’t read it. That’s cheating.
Some books have taken me a long time. I bought a copy of “Exodus” by Leon Uris at a used book sale. It took me as long to read that as the Jews wandered in the desert.
So books, not so much anymore. They’ve been replaced by other forms of media.