Not an hourly fagpost, but on a yearly basis, what's the minimum you should expect to get through?
I reckon I read 30 - 80 pages a day depending on complexity, translation / original, how recent it is (apparently John Evelyn only read contemporary books because they are quicker to read so he covered more ground... lol) and so on.
I reckon I can get through 40 - 50 books a year. Assuming I live to life expectancy, in my early twenties that gives me around 60 years. That's 3000 books give or take. Sounds like a lot, but is only 500 a decade.
Is this enough to become well read? What does that even mean?
Wouldn't it be better to combine a full reading history with still being young and strong? Is education the best provision for old age, or would it actually be better now but noone can achieve it?
Is this just a waste of time to think about?
Should I really be reading Evola when I haven't read Plato? Should I be reading Huxley at all?
Mason Ward
Well your reading speed should increase drastically if you read every day
Dominic Allen
To what though? I found when I was an early teen it was much quicker, easier to blot out distraction and really lose myself. Now I struggle to really get into the flow in the same way, can still bang out 60 pages an hour but its not as immersive. Maybe I am just skewing more towards non fiction in my old age, don't have the same trouble with poetry
But you look like a cunt reading poetry on the train, which is my main reading time
Samuel King
>caring what people on the train think of you
Joking aside. If you like to read poetry, read poetry.
Leo Bell
Eventually you'll come to recognize different styles and become more acclimated to certain translations and authors. Reading Homage To Catalonia by Orwell after reading War and Peace by Tolstoy was something of a delight, (especially because I was familiar with Orwell) and to be honest a completely a different experience.
Jeremiah Miller
Your concerns are futile and pointless. When you're dead, you're not going to be here to count how many pages you read in your lifetime. Read the book you need to read at a given moment, and read it well.
Asher Rodriguez
I just realized I don't like reading or more to the point, I've become extremely picky with what I read and would rather not stick to something that can't stick with me past the first page
and I'm in Creative Writing even...
Samuel Hernandez
reading speed should increase to about 50-100 pages an hour, you should be reading about 1-3 hours a day. If you can't manage 2 hours a day you're a subhuman, so anywhere from 150-200 pages a day should be covered by an experienced reader. Which equates to 54,000 pages a year, which is probably something like 100-200 books a year. Which would mean in one decade alone you should have read over a thousand texts (lets say from 22 to 32 years old). There are a number of people who read more than this though. And you would be unbelievably well read from just one decade of this kind of intake. You could cover the whole Western Canon, most major philosophical works, most major modern and post-modern works, and a huge number of essays, poems and scientific texts doing this
Dominic Kelly
People on the train don't give a fuck about you. They didn't notice what you were reading. They didn't notice that you were reading. They didn't notice that you were even there. Except for me, of course.
