You may always be an average reader (speed-wise) and there’s no shame in that. The fact that you enjoy reading and are proud of reading is far more important. However, I believe that very often, the more you read, the faster you get. So don’t be surprised if you start to pick up speed over the years.
Eh, well, I tend to think that some of us read so damned much that we’ve gotten naturally fast! But, I suppose that with some of the scary-fast ones, it’s talent too. Oh, I guess that reading all the damned time is a talent too!
I always read at night and in three installments. Regardless of the length of the book, I divide in into thirds (more or less, whatever chapter falls closest to the mark) and read it over three nights. This generally works out to between 100 and 150 pages a day.
That’s now and pleasure reading, though. Back in highschool, I could finish a less-than-enthralling book in a couple hours. Granted, at times my “reading” was more like glorified skimming, but that was enough.
I read the first four Harry potter books in two days,
The order of the Phoenix in about 8-10 hours [60-100 pph]
The average Clive Cussler is done in 6 hours. Most David Eddings, David Weber, or Lois McMaster Bujold books are done in a single sitting and Tom Clancy books take no more than two days. I’m a single University Student (can you tell?)
Working with Harry Potter’s OOTP word length of 255,000, that works out to about 1400 words per minute. Most speed reading courses will get you in the range of 800-1200 words per minute, so dwalin’s claims are reasonable.
I sure as hell can’t do it. OOTP took me around 8-10 hours to finish, and I thought that was fast…
Back in high school, my best friend and I - on a lark - decided to five-finger discount copies of And I Don’t Want To Live This Life be Deborah Spungen - Nancy’s mother from “Sid and Nancy” of Sex Pistols fame. On another lark, we decided to see which one could finish it first… took me about 5 hours.
I’ve read the last three Tom Clancy fiction books in about 2 days (each) and I can read most of Bernard Cornwell’s “Richard Sharpe” series in an evening, easy.
In college I took a WWII class. I read then entire textbook (1200 pages of just text - that doesn’t include the notes, bibliography or index) in 2 days, but then again that was reading for about 14 hours straight both days.
You know, this whole reading speed thing has intrigued me, so I started looking for some more online speed reading tests. I’ve discovered that I read between 500-700 wpm. (One test had me at about 500, but all the other tests had me at 600-700, so go figure.) Anyway, I found this article that basically says that speed reading is bunk, and that few people are really capable of reading faster than 400 wpm and comprehending much (well, that’s me paraphrasing—read the article yourself).
I don’t believe this article is entirely accurate. I mean, sure, I believe that many people read an average of 250-400 and that’s normal, and there’s nothing wrong with that (other than perhaps some of these people would like to finish books faster). But when I took these tests (and I took several—probably half a dozen), I found that when I tried to read “faster” I sometimes slowed down (believe it or not) and when I tried to relax and read at my “normal, comfortable” pace, I sped up. Or at least wasn’t wasn’t that much slower. I just can’t read slower than I can read. Does that make any sense? It’s comfortable for me to read at that speed, and my comprehension is fine. (Probably not 100%, but fine.)
