The Sword and Laser discussion
The Simple Truth Behind Reading 200 Books A Year
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^Yeah, I have trouble even listening to talk radio while driving. The news will come on and five minutes later it's over and I can't remember a single story.
@Allison: I can totally get behind the idea of learning things 417 hours a year. 100% agree continuing to learn new things is something everyone can benefit from. Just trying to make the point that the arbitrary book count of 200 isn't as unobtainable as folks make it out to be.I also readily acknowledge that audiobook multi-tasking is not for everyone, and it's certainly something I know I've gotten better at with practice. I may find it a welcome relief from the Houston gridlock, but it would drive my husband completely batty - he can't do talk radio while driving.
@Melanti: Yes, your math does check. As said, it's not something I generally put a lot of thought into how I get there. Just something that at the end of the year adds up to my friends wondering if they should buy Amazon stock.
John (Taloni) wrote: "^Yeah, I have trouble even listening to talk radio while driving. The news will come on and five minutes later it's over and I can't remember a single story."Audiobooks are something I had to get used to.
When I first started with them, I could only do something utterly mindless - like going for a walk. And even then my attention wandered some. The more I listened, though, the more I'm able to multi-task.
Driving while listening is now no big deal unless I'm in heavy, fast-moving traffic. When that happens, I either just switch over to the radio or use the rewind button a lot once traffic clears up or slows down.
Though that's also dependent on the book type. I'm more able to multi-task on a light, easy book and less able on a heavy, dense read.
Melanti wrote: "Though that's also dependent on the book type. I'm more able to multi-task on a light, easy book and less able on a heavy, dense read. "Amen!
Becky wrote: "@Allison: I can totally get behind the idea of learning things 417 hours a year. 100% agree continuing to learn new things is something everyone can benefit from. Just trying to make the point that..."Oh yeah! No, for sure, I wasn't trying to contradict you. I think it's pretty awesome that you have the ability and the commitment to get through that many books in a year. I am adding that I think that those of us who don't but still consume new information in other ways aren't TRASH all caps like the author of the original...article?post? might think.
Basically, I shake my fist at you, author guy, and declare all (verifiable) information good.
Thinking about it a bit more - I read 81 last year and have a full time job. Once I retire I can see myself hitting the 200 mark.
Audiobooks... I can't count them fully. No offense to those who like them, but unless you're focusing on them I can't see how you're giving the book the same attention as when you're actually reading it. Now, in some cases (long commutes, etc) yes. But when I hear multitasking it means to me that you aren't giving the book your attention as much as if you were focusing on it. On reading speed - are there any studies on average speed? I read ~ a page a minute but I don't really know if that's about average, fast, slow...
I'll agree with what has been said by Allison and Becky, as well as others, where the density of the book/ podcast vs. the intensity of the driving conditions is important. And I have also had to stop the audio I was interested in while I got through a section of driving I had to pay more attention in. Luckily the vast majority of the 25,000 to 30,000 miles I put on a year is low intensity highway driving. The one thing that was a complete and utter failure was trying to listen/ learn a foreign language while driving. Way to much new knowledge and concentration required to do anything else for me.
The reading speed test Silvana posted earlier - http://www.readingsoft.com/ - tells me that I read 316 words per minute. That's about a page per minute in an average paperback book. It also says that reading from paper is 25% faster than from a computer, but I suspect that's not true for me. That felt like my actual reading speed across media.Typeface is also a factor. Reading straight from that web page versus reading the font that iPad's Reader function uses feels significantly slower to me.
I'll grab screenshots for those who don't use an iPad and have no idea what I'm talking about. Basically iPad has a built-in function that converts a web page to something resembling a magazine single-column layout.
Well, you can also read via Marvin or another reader which allows you much greater control over layout, spacing, font, etc.
Back in the 90s I probably read 200 books/year, if not more. Of course, that was when I was taking the bus to & from work, and after I got home most evenings I'd just sit and read until I went to bed. That was before such things as Netflix, the internet and a gaming PC ...
Silvana wrote: "First of all, it is indeed a challenge to dedicate/divide time for our downtime. I figure some of us readers also watch lots of TV and active in social media. But I don't see myself sacrificing those. I need my TV series, podcasts, etc."The part that was left out of the "Read 500 pages like this every day" part of the article is that Warren Buffet estimates that he spends 80% of his working day reading and thinking. https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013...
He's not trying to fit it into his downtime. Tom, all of that reading you do to prepare your podcasts counts. Ditto for everyone else who reads for work.
Another thing to consider is that the article's math is based on the 50,000 words/book nonfiction standard (that the quoted stack of books refers to), not the sci-fi/fantasy 100,000 words/book standard. So feel free to count your 350-page SFF novels as 2 books when considering how much you read relative to this article.
200 books a year is nothing. If I could spend an extra 32+ hours each week reading (I wish), I would break 300 just in that extra time. That is based on the standard of the 350 page paper or e-ink novel (not even doubled based on my previous comment), for which I have the best sense of my reading speed (4-5 hours per book, depending on how well I focus). I can read faster, but not for an extended period. I read a little slower on LCDs and for some reference books.
Rick wrote: "On reading speed - are there any studies on average speed? I read ~ a page a minute but I don't really know if that's about average, fast, slow...
The Evelyn Wood Seven-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program gives 250 words per minute (wpm) as the English average and the article that started this thread give 200-400 wpm, which is the range I generally run across. They don't give pages because there is no standard. For audiobook comparison, English speech is in the 200-350 wpm range (based on court reporter and real-time captioning requirements).
I don't know if I'm the one who doesn't get Buffett's point, but in my opinion, the author of the article just doesn't get what Buffett meant by knowledge. Buffett is mostly concerned about the fact that most people stop at some point their learning process or initiative, seeing it as a start and finish project. What I understand from this is that we should approach experiences with a purpose of learning and consuming and digesting as much information as we can. Buffett is also from a different generation, with a set of tools different form what we have and what we are accustomed too today. Nowadays, information can come in a variety of ways. When I listen to Radiolab podcast, I'm not adding words or pages or books to my yearly reading stats, but I'm still learning, benefiting from other people's point of view and analysis, and when I watch a documentary, it is as much an appreciation of art as it is an opportunity to ingest new info and practice my analytical skills. I'm sure reading 500 words of Danielle Steel per day wouldn't entirely fit Buffett's prescription for a more knowledgeable life. And while I'm reading right now The long way to a small angry planet, it might count in Mr. Chu's book count, but I don't think I'm learning more (or less) than when I watched Farscape a (very!) long time ago.
Goodreads says I read 281 books last year, but I'm guessing that most of those wouldn't be up to this guy's snobbish sounding standards. It looks like around half of those were graphic novels, and only a tenth were nonfiction. If he's lumping all of TV into the "trash" category I'm guessing he'd probably lump a lot of my reading into that category as well. As a librarian I read a lot as part of my job. While I don't sit there the whole day reading at the desk, I do read during our slower hours and I always read on my breaks. I even read in the back office some when I'm preparing for book clubs or book talks. I'm also constantly surrounded by books and people talking about books, which makes me want to pick up more to read. And it helps that I have two hours of driving time each workday in which I sometimes listen to audiobooks.
SarahP wrote: "I don't know if I'm the one who doesn't get Buffett's point, but in my opinion, the author of the article just doesn't get what Buffett meant by knowledge. Buffett is mostly concerned about the fact that most people stop at some point their learning process or initiative, seeing it as a start and finish project..."Yes. Buffett's point is to make learning a lifelong priority. It's a priority I share.
Nobody can study without breaks. Things like the Radiolab podcast are educational and entertaining. As far as I'm concerned, recreational material counts by giving the mind time to get ready for the next block of heavier learning. And you can learn from stories with the right mindset.
Really, if you are going to obey external, arbitrary metrics, you're mostly just going to stress yourself out and not want to read for any purpose.
Very insightful thread, by the way.I agree on the fact that we use different ways to acquire knowledge/information + thing we read for work should count. Lord knows how many briefs/papers I have to read in a day (I did not even count emails).
Anyway, for those who still think they could increase their books a bit, I recommend using DailyLit. It is a pretty useful tool to read books regularly in bits (you can manage how much you want to read in a day). I used that to read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - a book I was not sure I'd be able to finish (but did)
Jordan raises an interesting point - what's a 'book'? AS genre readers, I'd argue we use genre definitions, i.e. those of the Hugo. So a novel is at least 40k+ words or at least about 160 pages (at 250 words per page). Thus, to me, a novella is about half a book, i.e. I'd count two novellas as one book for these purposes. I don't know how to count graphic novels. They aren't a 1 to 1 score, i.e. I can't see one graphic novel being the same as 1 regular novel. Yet they're fiction and a valid format for sure. Perhaps time spent?
I also would not count stuff read for work unless it was an actual book. I think it's different and much harder to quantify. I read a ton of that, but have NO idea how I'd stack it up against what we're calling a book here.
Of course, the 40k word standard is very low. Even a Scalzi book which is usually on the short end of things these days, is 2-3x that. So what do we do with a Peter Hamilton or Neal Stephenson book? Are they 3 books? 5 books? Or is 40k the wrong figure???
I know... I'll stop worrying about what some columnist wrote and just enjoy!
Especially now that Tor's started selling standalone novellas, and I've started reading them, I generally don't worry about it -- I figure that I'll read a mix of shorter & longer works and it'll kind of average out in the end.Having said which, personally I don't track graphic novels, but that's just me.
Rick wrote: "I don't know how to count graphic novels. They aren't a 1 to 1 score, i.e. I can't see one graphic novel being the same as 1 regular novel. Yet they're fiction and a valid format for sure. Perhaps time spent? "For me, most graphic novels are roughly the same as a short story. But for the larger tomes, such as collections like Bone: The Complete Edition or Thor by Walt Simonson Omnibus or Alpha Flight by John Byrne Omnibus or various Star Wars omnibus collections, each of which are well over 1,000 pages, I count those as novels.
@trike - that feels right but I don't read them, hence my question. Thanks. @joseph - Yeah, I'm reading the Tor novellas a lot too which is what spurred that for me. As you can tell from my last sentence I don't really care about book count either, I'm just treating this as a game.
Yeah, I don't take it too seriously either. Having said which, when I first started setting GR goals for myself, I went with 52/yr (which is a nice, round number -- 1/wk), but in recent years I've started my goal at 26 to give myself room to fit in some doorstoppers. (And then I've bumped it back up when I blew right past the initial goal.)
Trike wrote: "The reading speed test Silvana posted earlier - http://www.readingsoft.com/ - tells me that I read 316 words per minute. That's about a page per minute in an average paperback book. It also says th..."I got 538, got 100% on the comprehension test too. But this is still sorta mis-leading for me personally. Longer and denser paragraphs will slow me down to around 400ish and if the wording is confusing or it's really trying to get across deep ideas that will drop to easily around 200ish. While if you keep paragraphs to 1-2 lines I can start zipping at way higher speeds, as I can basically read an entire line as long as it's a single line or 2 as a single word if that makes sense, any longer than that and I'm forced to break up my "words" into 2 or 3 groupings per sentence.
As someone who reads over 300 books a year, I have to say that people always assume I am just skimming until they talk to me about the books. I don't necessarily remember everything about every book but I do get tired of defending my freakishness to strangers. At least a few times a year, complete strangers will contact me to ask me about it. It's bizarre.But my short answer is always - I have a short commute, my dogs get me up at 5, and I don't have children. Also I don't work out. HA. But underneath that, I also meditate 30 minutes a day and watch a fair amount of television. So....
I think a more interesting answer is that I learned to read music very early on in life, and as a music major in college spent 6 hours a day practicing. I think my brain absorbs more words on the page at once, similar to how it absorbs key signatures, time signatures, phrasing, and other musical markings. You have to notice those in time to apply them to the notes while also getting the notes right. That's a different kind of brain attention than one note at a time. And so I'm not sure I'm always reading one word at a time. In fact I am often circling back to reread something because I've jumped farther down the page.
But yeah, I read a lot. I'm not a freak.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "In fact I am often circling back to reread something because I've jumped farther down the page."I have this problem when I'm reading out loud. I tend to read ahead while I'm speaking and then I get tripped up on what I'm supposed to be saying.
Jenny... You might be a freak but you're OUR freak. :)I think you nailed it when you said you can take in more words at once than most probably can. I can do that, but it takes an effort for me. The other thing about reading that many books is consistency.
Above, I talked about myself as a streak reader and I am. I'm in a groove right now because a lot of things I want to read have been coming out but it's very possible that I'll slow at some point. If someone reads almost every day then yeah, I can see a high count. I wouldn't get to your level of almost a book a day but that's partly driven by the fact that I don't know if I have 300 books a year I'd be interested in. I'd actually like to hear how you discover new books.
Rick wrote: "Jenny... You might be a freak but you're OUR freak. :)I think you nailed it when you said you can take in more words at once than most probably can. I can do that, but it takes an effort for me. ..."
I think you're right that you can read more when you're interested in a book, when you're excited to get to it. I am bailing more often, although not always (I just finished a book this morning that I should have bailed on.) I get ideas from award lists, podcasts, and Goodreads friends! But I read largely on whimsy and try to stay away from shoulds. That helps enormously. I might set a broad goal (read poetry! read books about borders) but not get any more specific than that; once I do, once I make a plan of "I will read these books" they become the last books I want to read.
How about you?
I'm more random. I read things by favorite authors, occasionally from newsletters I subscribe to when there's a deal if I don't know the author but a goal for me this year is to read more outside SFF. I used to read a lot of biography, mystery and some non-fiction, esp history.. I think when I hit a slow time in the genre I've tended not to read much vs reading something else. Trying to hop back into the history and biography this year.
So Jenny, since you think reading music helps you read literature. What authors writing feels the most like reading music? And do you tend to gravitate to works that are that way, or doesn't it matter.Just curious, from someone who has no ability to read music whatsoever (I can just barley clap in rhythm if I really, really, try).
John (Nevets) wrote: "So Jenny, since you think reading music helps you read literature. What authors writing feels the most like reading music? And do you tend to gravitate to works that are that way, or doesn't it mat..."What a great question! Goodness. I think Madeleine Thien's most recent novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, is written in musical form on a very conscious level. It's not swordy or lasery.
Within the lasers and swords, Catherynne Valente is 19th century tone poems and Samuel R. Delany is a serialist. :)
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "But yeah, I read a lot. I'm not a freak."That's exactly what a freak would say.
You're a computer and I claim my five pounds.
Trike wrote: "Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "But yeah, I read a lot. I'm not a freak."That's exactly what a freak would say.
You're a computer and I claim my five pounds."
Hahaaaa
The Sword and Laser
Books mentioned in this topic
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (other topics)The Mighty Thor Omnibus (other topics)
Bone: The Complete Edition (other topics)
Alpha Flight by John Byrne Omnibus (other topics)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (other topics)
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Yes, it does require that you read f..."
I think his math works out to more than a page per minute, as he's saying he reads a 200 page book in a bit over 2 hrs. So, about a page and a half a minute.
417 hours works out to 1:15 per day and that does seem reasonable (unless you have small kids, of course). Half an hour on your lunch break and half an hour before bed will almost get you that amount.
It's just that I think in the real world, with more realistic numbers - slower reading speeds, longer books, etc - to get to 200 books/year, you'll probably have to read closer to 3 or 4 hours per day. That's still doable - especially if you factor in audiobooks. But it does change it from the author's premise that 200 books/year is something anyone can work into his daily routine to it having to be a main hobby.