I read at night before sleep mostly, for pleasure anyway. I lie there for, say, a half hour to an hour or so each night.

I lie on my side trying to hold the book up until my arm gets tired, then I roll over. Then that arm gets tired, so I roll on my back and put the book in the air. Needless to say, that doesn’t last long, so I then roll back onto my side and start the process all over again. Usually there will come a point when I wake with a start, realising I am falling asleep and have had an automatic knee-jerk reaction to catching the book as it falls from my hand.

I have always felt I am a slow reader. I know many of you plough through so many more books than I do. Some multiple books a week.

I was recently browsing the website howlongtoread.com. They give you a passage of text to read and record the time it takes you to read it. I am sure I cheated and read it faster than I normally would as I wasn’t reading for full comprehension of the story. I was just zipping along reading the words. You can then look up titles of books to see how long they estimate it would take you to read each one.

According to the website, if I were to pick up a copy of Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, it would take me around five hours and 31 minutes to read from beginning to end. I thought, that’s not too bad. That means in one week I could knock that over easily.

What about something a bit weightier? I chose A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Wow, this one is a bit longer at 13 hours and 52 minutes to get through the 296 343 words within 720 pages. I remember reading this book and it took me a long time.

Let’s go even bigger. Off the shelf comes War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Apparently, it would take me one day, seven hours and 27 minutes to read it! I would consume 566 328 words over a whopping 1392 pages.

On one hand this is useful information. I could take Cloudstreet on holiday with me and I know there would be no stress finishing before I came home. On the other hand, A Little Life would probably take me about three weeks. If I took War and Peace, I would have to take long service leave.

It’s entertaining for a while to look at some of the bigger books and the time commitments you need to make for them. Although I find there are lots of aspects to reading that vary my speed.

Now War and Peace is at the bottom of my to-be-read pile, as I am yet to tackle it, and that length of time scares me off. This is a dense story so I imagine it might not be something I can read quickly but rather I’ll have to concentrate quite hard on, which will certainly slow me down further. That means retirement surely.

I can read a thriller quickly. Suspense novels have strong narrative drives, pushing you along so I might even beat a predicted time length to read it. But, a whodunnit I find I read slower. Who’s who? Who did what? Was that a clue I just read or a red herring? Sometimes I re-read bits, going back to see if I missed
a clue.

I also find I read books with small printing, like War and Peace, much slower. But maybe it’s just that I turn the pages less often as there are so many more words on a page. The size of font seems to help me. Bigger font equals me reading faster. But is that simply an illusion?

The language used by authors affects me. Big complex words always trip me up. Like looking at a gorgeous tree while walking, beautiful sentences give me pause to appreciate them.

Reading on transport, being overtired, having an overactive mind, noises outside all slow the speed. Sometimes I just have a short attention span for some reason. There are times I end up re-reading what I read the night before as I just didn’t digest anything I read. I wonder if that is a reflection of how the book has gripped me, or not, or just a tired or distracted mind?

If I read every night I tend to read more smoothly. Especially if the book has nicely sized chapters, where I can aim to finish at the end of one before turning off the light.

Now I’m not a reader who likes e-books. I wonder if you do, how they affect your reading speed and comprehension? I am also hopeless with audio books. My mind wanders all over the shop and I miss half the book.

Although War and Peace will likely remain at the bottom of the pile, and never climb to the top, it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to read it if I actually wanted to, that is.

If you only like short books, fast-paced books, long meandering narratives or big historical biographies that’s great. Who cares what anyone else thinks? It’s what you like, what time you have, what you want to read. •

Rowena