How long does it usually take you to finish a book?
(submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)
I remember when I used to write stories way back in primary school, and I’d ask the teacher how long they needed to be (sometimes they were set as homework, other times I…basically gave myself optional homework!). Her response always stuck with me – “how long is a piece of string?” Basically saying a story is as long as it needs to be!
Similarly, the amount of time it takes me to read a book varies so much it really made me think of that – how long does it take? As long as it needs! There are so many factors that come into play. How long is the book, for starters? How much time do I have? Some books I can finish over a day or so, others might take me a week. I tend to read through digital books on my kindle much faster, as I typically have more opportunities to read these, but physical can take me a while as nowadays I only tend to read them before bed, and I try to alternate bedtime reading between physical and digital.
To give an idea, I checked out a few of my recent reads on Goodreads to see how long these took me along with the page counts.
Scareground is the most recent book I read, and at 354 pages the paperback took me about three weeks to read. Hummingbird was a digital book, and although it was 300 pages it really didn’t feel like it! That one had me totally wrapped up in the story, and only took me 3 days. A Terrible Kindness was a book I struggled with, and at 377 pages it took me about a week and a half. Another paperback read, The Duke and I, comes in at 384 pages and took me just under 3 weeks, whereas The Foxglove King, which I read on Kindle and is the longest of these at 501 pages, took me 2 weeks to read – I actually started the latter on 29th July and The Duke and I on 31st, finishing TFK on August 12th and Duke and I on the 18th.
I think looking at these, the other major factor is how well does it hold my interest – if I’m totally gripped by a book, I can fly through it. If I’m finding it a drag, it takes me longer. And the above examples definitely show how I can get through digital books now much quicker than physical!
Unwrapping Words 