How Many Books Do You Read in a Year?

Someone recently posted this question on a writers’ forum, and some of the answers made me go, “Wow!” One writer said that, according to her Kindle, she’d read 365 books last year. However, a Kindle book could be a short story or a 3-page report.

Credit: M.Greengrass, 2012

The answers were all over the place, from as low as eight to as high as the mighty 365. It made me think about how many books I read in a year. On average, I read one or two books a week, so I’ll say that I read around 80 a year. I read more non-fiction than fiction, because I usually have two or three non-fiction books on the go, but I can only read one fiction book at a time. Also, I skim a lot of non-fiction.

Now, if I were to count short (10-30 pages) non-fiction books on niche subjects, then yeah, I can also claim hundreds. But I don’t think that’s what people mean when they ask, “How many books?”

I’m also not counting my own books. I do numerous rounds of editing, and I have to read the entire book for each round. By the time I release a book, I’ve read it at least five times (and will throw up if I have to read it again).

If I learned how to speed read, I suppose I could increase the number of books I read per year, but I’ve covered speed reading already.

How many books do you read in a year? Are you a speed reader, or do you like to take your time? Can you beat 365 books?

How Many Books Do You Read in a Year? is a post from: Sarah Ettritch