Friday, August 19, 2011

How Many Books Do You Read a Week?



It's Friday, the weekend, which means time to catch up on all that pleasure reading, right? Ever go crazy, gobbling up as many tomes and novels as you can on your couple days off? Or perhaps you go on reading straight through the week just to get it all crammed into your busy schedule?

It's no surprise that most of us love reading, but with so many zillions of books out there it can be daunting trying to tackle all the great works in bookstores and libraries. I've always liked to read, but not until I met my wife during college did I learn what it really meant to be passionate about reading. She averages a book a day and has as long as I've known her. No joke!

I feel pretty good if I get two or three books read per week, but at that rate I'll probably only have read about ten thousand books by the time I'm in my eighties. Not all books are equal of course and rereading is a favorite pastime of mine as well, so how can anyone possibly get all the reading in we want? Perhaps, it's a good thing that we'll never run out of books, but how do you get all your reading in each week?


24 comments:

  1. This week I have been fortunate enough to read four books that I simply could not put down. And I have two more on my shelf just waiting for me. It's not helping me get any writing done, but I sure am learning from them, plus there just great entertainment :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Mark:
    We fear that we should never sleep if we tried to come even close to your reading score. We do find that the pace of reading is very variable, not always related to the difficulty level of the content. Some books just get swallowed whole whereas others are sipped like a fine wine and yet others still have many false starts before finally the endpages are reached.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm not a fast reader (and even a slower writer) so I only manage one book a week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If I have a few hours of time (like on weekends) I can finish a book a day or more, but my usual pace is around four a week.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I read quickly, but only do so on my commute to and from work. If the book is exceptionally good, I'll spend more time reading. Wish I had time to read at least one each week, but with all the other stuff that needs to get done, including writing and editing, I just can't. I figure I read one every 2 weeks. :(

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm a slow reader, dang it, and my writing gets in the way most of the time. I'm lucky if I finish a book a month -- but I'm in the middle of King's Under the Dome, and at over 1,000 pages, that one may take me a while.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ha! I maaaaaybe get in a book a week, if it's a really good week. Ever since I had my little one, my reading time has gone way down. I read in snippets, which can be a very annoying way of reading a novel. Maybe when the kiddo gets older I'll find more time :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Serious? You can read that many books? I wish!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Another slow reader here. Usually takes me ten days to two weeks to get through a good sized novel. If I finish at all. The older I get the less patient I am with novels that don't grab me. I finish far fewer books than I start.

    I think the fastest I ever read a book was The Road in two days.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I try to read something every week. Most of the time it's non-fiction history books. I sneak in a fiction novel about every 2 weeks. Everything is a week or two longer when I'm writing. Nice blog.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My Kindle and Kindle App allow me to read whenever I have down time and I can usually finish at least one or two books a week that way. I also listen to audio books in the car for my daily commute so that usually adds another each week. My writing has slowed that pace down a little since I try to spend my down time writing as well. Unfortunately, I sometimes use my love of reading as an excuse to avoid the more daunting task of writing. Bad JD, very bad JD.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I'm a very slow reader and it takes me a long time to finish books. The one I'm reading now has been with me a few weeks (though it is longer and heavier than what I'd normally tackle in the summer). I do keep my book in the car so if I get presented with time I didn't expect, I can turn some pages instead of staring into space. I would love to finish a book each week.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Easy - read while cooking, eating, walking, bathi ng...slight exaggeration maybe but yes, I tend to read when I should be doing other things :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. You read 2-3 books a week!? Wow...

    I'm lucky if I get done 2-3 per month.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I can never get enough time to read! I love it though. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. J.A. - Gosh, by the end of the week you may have averaged a book a day, well done!

    Jane/Lance – Very. Very good point. Some books cannot be rushed and must be savored as long as possible. The very best books are of this caliber.

    Alex – Truthfully, speed isn't really what matters, but the passion a person has for reading. A close reading guarantees that you really get to the heart of the story.

    Eagle – Four a week is pretty darn good! Especially if you're cramming it all just into a few hours.

    J.L. - Commutes are good times to read. I often find that the most consistent readers utilize those “dead spaces” during the day to their advantage.

    Milo – It's funny how writing can take away from reading time, but I've found over time that reading actually fuels my writing and the more I read, the more I write.

    Jess – A books a week is still great. Kids def demand more attention that books, but reading in snippets is still better than not reading at all:)

    Donna – Serious as I can be. My wife reads twice as much as me:)

    L.G. - Slow isn't bad. It's called close reading and is a very good thing as well. I don't blame you for not being patient with some novels, after all if a book doesn't grab you it doesn't grab you and that's all there is to it.

    Loree – That's great that you read so much non-fiction, but also mix it up with some fiction as well. Thanks for visiting:)

    J.D. - Lol, very bad, ha. No, I think you're probably just normal:) Listening to audio books can be a great way to get more bookishness into your day.

    Paul – Keeping a book in the car is a great idea. Always prepared!

    Sarah – I think you got the hang of it;) My wife trained me to bring a book everywhere and as a result I get lots more reading wedged into the “dead spots” in my day. Cook...ok, I admit I've read fiction while making dinner as well:)

    Clarissa – Yup, unless I'm engrossed in rereading a classic, I normally shoot for 2-3 a week.

    Bethany – Seriously, there really isn't enough time to read, but with so many great books to last us forever, maybe that's a good thing:)

    ReplyDelete
  17. While I used to be a one book per day reader, I haven't been able to find as much time lately. I do get a book read every few days, though. I always have a stack, and the few times I haven't I've felt rather empty until I refilled it. Most of my reading time is before bed, and I carry a book/Kindle with me everywhere in case I find a few minutes to sneak in some reading.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Unfortunately I'm a slow reader as well so I'd say 1 per week if I'm lucky.

    ReplyDelete
  19. A book a week, I'm doing well! Was ever the slow coach!

    ReplyDelete
  20. I read anywhere between 1 and 5 books a week. I'm a very quick reader, which is nice. I try to read at least a little bit every day (mostly because I love it!), and some days I get sucked in and read a whole book. Some days I read with an eye for craft, which takes a bit longer.

    Excellent post!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Id like to invite you folks to come to Amish Stories for a recipe for "Famous Pennsylvania Dutch Sticky Cinnamon Buns" along with a book signing schedule for Amish fiction writer Wanda Brunstetter for Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as a contest to meet her. I hope everyone so far is having a great weekend. Thanks everyone. Richard from Amish Stories.

    ReplyDelete
  22. I'm 5-7 books a week, but truthfully, a lot of them are submissions that may never see the light of day. So I guess 2 "real" books and 4 or 5 books trying to be books:)

    ReplyDelete
  23. I read three books at a time… but I never finish a book in a week, unless it has a small page count; I rarely read a book less than 300 pages.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I used to average a book a day before, but now I'm lucky if I can get in 3 books a week. I read more than one book a time, and most of my reading is in the bed, or between writing or cooking breaks :)

    ReplyDelete

 
https://nocestories.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-many-books-do-you-read-week.html
nocestories.blogspot.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2019-39
153550
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:CO2O2CQ54BF7WFCEGER2SUH5UG5EKELH
<urn:uuid:84092fbc-ebdd-4968-88ae-7dbbbcb22944>
2019-09-22T07:49:42Z
172.217.9.193
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:Q7F4CATUACCSLCTZZCU2XGZ43MXB7UQU
<urn:uuid:dfa1885a-a976-4269-a13e-2cdd86b18b06>
https://nocestories.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-many-books-do-you-read-week.html
response
<urn:uuid:26969024-f5f9-4100-be20-e28d536b37b7>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2019-39
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2019
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-83.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.1-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/