# How long would it take you to read a 1000 pg book? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 1, 2009, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570 "2009-12-01T09:14:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/61 "2009-12-02T21:07:16Z")
I don’t see the horse either, I think _horse_. I don’t see a picture of a horse, it isn’t a movie, and I don’t say “horse” in my mind, I just think horse. Is it an abstract/concrete sort of divide? Do people who see movies or hear words in their heads have problems with abstraction in general? ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/62 "2009-12-02T23:23:41Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > How on earth do you read with out sounding out the words? I’ve been trying for the last hour or so and it just doesn’t work. Just glancing at a word makes me start pronouncing it automatically. I _think_ what I’m saying (I haven’t really thought about this much before) is that I don’t need to consciously register the sound of a word to understand it. F’rinstance, if a character has a long name, I might not notice the actual pronunciation. So I’ll be halfway through the book, or even finished, and I realize that I’ve been thinking of the Z-character as Zurven, but he’s really Zuvierin. That’s another thing- I’m a bit dyslexic when it comes to long or unfamiliar words. This includes real words that I just haven’t heard people pronounce. So my family made fun of me when I said “imbecile” as “imbeccable”. I’d just never registered that the way I was thinking it didn’t match the spelling. I do hear your post as words now, because it’s just a short post (and because I’m thinking about it). But when I’m faced with an engrossing passage I forget to listen, I guess. I do think every word when I’m typing. It drives me crazy because I have to spend several seconds on each individual word. ---
**Author:** ![Stuffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@Stuffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuffy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/63 "2009-12-03T03:34:35Z")
I’m a visualizer much like **Sateryn76** reading for me is like, well being there, in the passage. Most longer debates here I tend to visualize being in a group of people talking, or in a lot of cases stand-up. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/64 "2009-12-03T16:31:45Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > ETA: Fast readers don’t actually look at all the words, either - we pattern match. It has happened to me more than once that I pattern-matched a word, it didn’t make sense, then I had to go back and actually _look_ at the word to see what was actually there. I had “seen” the word as I was reading - my brain filled in the pattern it expected. Exactly. I’ve often had the same experience. When I’m reading non-technical material, I’m not just reading individual words, either. I read groups of words and even whole phrases essentially simultaneously. > [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > I _think_ what I’m saying (I haven’t really thought about this much before) is that I don’t need to consciously register the sound of a word to understand it. F’rinstance, if a character has a long name, I might not notice the actual pronunciation. Me, too. I noticed with many fictional books that the pronunciation I associated with unfamiliar words (especially names) often had no relation to how the words were supposed to be pronounced. Interestingly, for me, even when reading rapidly, I’m a great proofreader. Typographical errors and misspellings jump out for me even when reading rapidly. I’ve often had the experience where I’m rapidly reading something, and know that something is wrong somewhere. It often takes a few seconds to actually find the misspelled word buried in a paragraph. In that time, I would not be able to tell you exactly what is wrong, but could all but guarantee that there is some misspelling or even a grammatical error somewhere in the group of words I just read. This is a consequence of digesting whole chunks of words all at once. I used to find reading to my son (when he young) exhausting, because it was just so **slow**. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/65 "2009-12-05T04:39:21Z")
I’m on page 500 now. I’ve spent 2.5-3 hrs a night since I started this thread. Since the other Dome thread certainly has spoilers in it I can’t read it but I will say that the characters in this book seem like caricatures or something. Particularly Big Jim and Barbie. Those characters are damaging the book for me because it’s so distracting reading their passages. Big Jim is 100% bad and Barbie is 100% good. I dont like characters like that. Back on topic I’m halfway through now. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/66 "2009-12-05T05:40:54Z")
I never measured myself at that many pages, but I do about 1.5 small print, paperback pages per minute (maybe a bit faster on the hardcover versions), so roughly 10-11.1 hours. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/67 "2009-12-05T06:03:55Z")
It really depends on the book. Some books are just page-turners. For instance, years ago I read _Shogun_ in the bathtub, and it took me three hours. Yes, the water got cold. However, that book has a couple of places where I was reminded that I needed to add more hot water. I don’t remember if it was over 1000 pages but it was a big fat paperback. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/68 "2009-12-05T19:45:09Z")
You mean when they cooked those guys to death? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/69 "2009-12-05T20:57:57Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > Some of you people are nuts. I mean it’s one thing to recognize all the words you’re looking at and get the gist, but how can you really _digest_ so much text in so short a time? When I am reading I am also trying to visualize what I’m reading and that means going at a fairly slow pace. I haven’t really timed myself, but I sure as hell can’t read an 800 page book in 5-6 hours as some people have claimed in here. Not even close. The visualization should speed it up. Have you ever been doing something so interesting, you lost track of time, and suddenly, 3-5 hours passed? That’s the _flow effect_ or _flow experience_, and occurs when doing something called “extensive reading.” Here’s something I pulled off a reading study from google: “[She](http://extensivereading.net/er/renandyavietnam.html) explains these benefits with reference to the work of Csikszentminhalyi (1991) on the Psychology of Optimal Experience, i.e., by taking part in enjoyable, self-directed, goal-oriented activities, we experience a state called flow.” The citation above: Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1991. FLOW: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper. Personally, I find that my advantage in reading speed comes from being able to enter the flow state of mind quickly and effortlessly. When I’m done reading, I usually don’t remember reading text, but I have a full movie in my head of the story with nearly perfect recall. When I’m reading something that does not have a narrative (e.g. a research paper,) my reading speed drops to something like paragraph/minute, and I get irritable and cranky. Interestingly, however, I can achieve the flow experience when working with excel spreadsheets. After talking to reading teachers, we all agree that the inability to achieve the flow effect is the biggest difference between someone who hates reading and someone who does. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/70 "2009-12-05T22:01:43Z")
I just finished **Under the Dome** about a week ago. I was really into it, and cracked it open to read as often as I could, given my usual busy schedule. It took me about 7 or 8 days to get through. I’ll do my heaviest reading before bedtime, but in this case, it consisted of me sitting down from 10pm to 4 am for a few nights once I was past half the book. 😉 By contrast, a typical 400 pager will take me about a week or two to get through if it’s not particularly compelling. But if it’s King or one of my other favorite authors, I’ll go on a reading binge for a couple days and just soak it up. Ahh, I love indulgent reading. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/71 "2009-12-07T03:36:26Z")
It doesn’t matter how big a book is, I have a compulsion to read it all the way through, and will have to get this done in 24 hours. If I don’t, I’ll forget what I’m reading, and it will become pointless. So if I want to read a complex book, it has to be rather short ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/72 "2009-12-07T06:42:48Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > The paperback version of **Shogun** is 1200 pages and I read that in about 10 days, I was not trying to get through it as fast as possible. Read **Shogun** in 24 straight hours…I was at in the Navy and at sea, had a day off. There is not a lot to do on a CGN when your underway and have a day off. \*\* Infinite Jest\*\* took me a bit longer, two weeks or so. DFW was a tad harder to keep straight. ymmv ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/73 "2009-12-07T07:36:14Z")
I’m at pg 750 now. I’m at the point where I want to be done with it so I can go into the other thread and post my opinions but I don’t want to risk seeing what the dome is by going in there. So far, I can say that I wish they would have focused more on the dome and exploring its properties, trying to escape and whatnot instead of the same-ole-same-ole character exposition as every other King book. I really like exploring characters motives and stuff but most of these characters seem about as deep as puddle so far. Most of the motivation behind why these characters follow Big Jim off the cliff like Lemmings is not satisfactorily explored. I’ll save that for the Dome thread when I get finished. I just hope this thing gets better. before it ends. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/74 "2009-12-07T15:26:04Z")
Oh, honey, have you never read a Stephen King book before? If it’s going to get good, it isn’t going to happen near the end, I promise you. I’m not sure I’ve ever read one that wouldn’t have been at least somewhat improved by _not_ reading the last hundred pages, at least. And since _Duma Key_ followed this tradition admirably, I’d guess his ability to end a book well has not improved with age. (Seriously, that one really had me until it started sucking donkey balls. When he came down the stairs to find somebody in the kitchen, it was a bright and sunny 2 PM where I was and the UPS man rang the doorbell and I literally almost peed my pants. Then, I dunno, stupid shit happened at the end and I didn’t really care.) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/75 "2009-12-07T16:20:40Z")
I’ve never decided whether to bless or curse my father for teaching me to read at a very young age. I became a natural speed reader and I absolutely devour books at an astounding rate. My personal library probably has well over a thousand books. A 1000 page King novel? If I sat down with it at 8:00 in the morning and had uninterrupted reading time, I’d probably finish it by noon, maybe 1:00 p.m. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/76 "2009-12-07T16:32:44Z")
Obviously, it depends on the book. If it’s a Stephen King bestseller-type novel, and I don’t have anything else to do, a day. No problem. OTOH, it took me like six months to read _The Brothers Karamazov_. Which was a lot more than 1000 pages. Most of what I read are academic papers for school, and those are pretty time-consuming. If I have to read 100 pages of…I don’t know, security policy, that could take me four or five hours. Mostly because I’d get bored and start screwing around on the internet after the first hour or so. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/77 "2009-12-11T08:29:10Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > You mean when they cooked those guys to death? 🙂 Exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/78 "2009-12-11T08:38:06Z")
> [@Spectralist](#): > > How on earth do you read with out sounding out the words? I’ve been trying for the last hour or so and it just doesn’t work. Just glancing at a word makes me start pronouncing it automatically. Has anyone seen any studies on the way people read with regards to sounding/not sounding? I would be very interested in seeing if this is something that can be learned and how one would go about doing that. If I couldn’t read without souding out, there’s several books I would not have been able to read. One of the reasons I moved to reading in English was to increase my vocabulary: that implied “learning new words which, due to English notions of spelling, I had no idea how to pronounce.” There’s words I heard pronounced for the first time more than ten years after first having read them. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/79 "2009-12-11T14:28:08Z")
I timed myself on reading the unedited That Stand. It took me just under 26 hours. ---
**Author:** ![jifuniversal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/45deac/32.png) [@jifuniversal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jifuniversal)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570/80 "2012-05-06T12:52:41Z")
I’m sorry to bring back an old one, but maybe some of you will help me anyway 😉 I feel lost and a bit helpless as it’s final exam in Psychology in 11 days. And I have just opened the first book (1 out of 2)!! I’ve always been kind of a last-minute-person and somehow it’s worked out most of the times. Now, I’m not sure sure…:smack: So I mentioned I’ve got two books. The main one is basic psychology (mind and behaviour) and is about 8-900 pages. A big one too, so approx. about 1000 in “typical book” size. The other one, the history of psychology, is “typical book” sized and has about 350 pages. The big one is in english, which is not my first language as I’m norwegian, though it seems alright and not too advanced. The other one is in norwegian, so I suppose it’ll be easier to get through. I’ve read this thread and I’m shocked at how incredibly fast readers some of you are! Wow. I feel slightly calmer after reading you guys use only a few days to get trough so many pages! What do you guys think? Am I doomed? I know it’s different reading this stuff vs. a story, but I do find it interesting. Do you have any tips I could use? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-would-it-take-you-to-read-a-1000-pg-book/519570.md?page=5)