Yesterday I watched a video of an older BookTuber talking about his reading experience, where he decided to dedicate more time to savoring a book instead of reading 40 books a year.
Regarding that topic, since last year, I've been reading Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, one chapter a day, because it's very long (although there were days or weeks when I didn't read anything because I had other obligations).
So, I want to ask you, members of this community, how you usually read and enjoy your books: do you finish them as quickly as possible, several chapters a day, or one chapter a day?
And what about those books or comics/webtoons that are written to be read nonstop, consuming as many chapters as possible in a row?
Thank you in advance for your opinion.
by CuriousGuy21200
18 Comments
I live in the moment. I read what I feel like reading and stop when I feel like stopping. I can understand why some people might want to live in an ordered and structured life with many rules for themselves, but I am a bird that refuses to be caged.
It depends on the book and depends on your mood. Some books are dense, heavy, and require a great deal of mental effort and focus (literature), so they tend to take longer to read and you benefit from reading them slowly and savoring the text, other books are quick and easy reads and stimulate the primal parts of your brain (action, adventure, smut) so there’s no problem in reading those quickly as there’s not much to savor as they’re written to be consumed quickly.
It’s like fine cuisine vs junk food. One you savor the other you eat quickly.
But it’s all up to you, read a book as fast or slow as you want.
Why would we rush reading? I dont fast forward through a song to have my Spotify wrapped say I hit x number of songs a year.
I try to read the book as fast as i can. But some days I can’t read more than a chapter a day due to life constraints. And I’m okay with that!
If I end up enjoying it, I’ll keep the book and I go back to it in a year or 2 and savor it more and read it more slowly 🙂
depends on the book and what’s happening in my life. i will devour a book in 3 days on occasion, but sometimes i’ll take 2 months to slowly read through. there is no objectively correct way to read as long as you are reading 🙂
It depends how much free time I have. And 2nd it depends how much I am into book.
Due to my different time availability, I end up doing both. Most of my books are audio at accelerated playback speeds. Physical/ebooks I have much less time for, so it ends up being a chapter or two when I can.
I’d say I prefer the faster pace because there are just too many books I want.
I prefer to emphasize time spent. I try to find ways to increase both the time and quality of the time I spend reading. If that involves blazing through some brain-candy fantasy book or pondering something so stimulating it takes an hour to get through just ten pages then either way is fine for me.
Depends on the book.
I’ve downed two 850 pagers this year.
First was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Absolutely loved it, but it was tough to read more than a chapter or two at a time because of both the writing style and how dense with information it was. Took a little over a month.
Second was Lonesome Dove. I couldn’t put it down. I was reading when I woke up in the morning, when I went to be at night, on my lunch break. Maybe took a week and a half to two weeks.
And that was with the new Dresden Files in between over 3-4 days.
Some books just read faster than others. I don’t really seem to have any control over how fast I read something, because I pretty much forget I’m reading while I’m imagining the scenes playing out before me. I guess the harder it is for me to imagine something, the slower I read?
Well. I’m currently ready a packed biography with a friend, and we’ve found limiting ourselves to five pages a session allows us to discuss what we’ve read. Such as what happened at Brandywine during the Revolutionary War.
I am also listening to two audiobooks. Tchaikovsky’s Children or Ruin, alternating with Corey’s Caliban’s War. Often I set stop at end-of-chapter, think about what I’ve listened to, sometimes re-listen to the chapter. Switch books if I feel like it…
It depends. Some books are exciting and I want to read them fast because I’m dying to know what happens next. Some books are more contemplative and I want to take my time to enjoy the language and think about the various themes or whatnot. Sometimes I’m tired and I want to read at a leisurely pace. Sometimes I am full of energy and want to tear through a book in an evening. Sometimes I read a book fast, and then reread it later at a slower pace to savor it.
It’s all good. You don’t have to pick one strategy and stick with it. You can read at whatever pace brings you the most enjoyment at the moment without having to worry if it’s the most “optimal” experience. No one is keeping track of your pace and no one but you can determine how you gain the most enjoyment from them.
At the moment I read at least 25 pages a day. That’s comfortable for me to achieve and it’s the right pace for me.
Whatever pace you find comfortable.
Some things i read fast, some thibgs slow.
It depends *entirely* on what type of book it is. Action-oriented page turners – like *I Am Pilgrim* by Terry Hayes? I stayed up all night reading that, and would do the same if I found an equally good book in that style. Classics in the same vein would be like *The Count of Monte Cristo*. (Could see myself binging that.)
On the other hand, I would implode and die if I tried reading something slower and more intellectually challenging like, say *Cloud Atlas* by David Mitchell that day. You’d probably miss the point entirely if you sped through that in a day. (I have way less books read which I feel fits that category, so that’s the example I could come up with.)
It depends on what sort of experience you want out of the book as well. You could savour a whodunit mystery and come up with your own theories over days of reading – usually not the way I read them, but it’s a perfectly valid choice.
I think, for me, it really depends on the specific book. There are fast paced, action packed books that I can finish in one or two sittings without it negatively impacting my reading experience (maybe even enhancing it!). But if I’m reading a classic or a literary fiction work that is slow paced, heavier, or requires more focused attention, then I might enjoy it more if I read 30-50 pages at a time.
I read at whatever pace feels right for a book. My favourite fantasy series I will read a single volume of in a day, nonfiction I tend to take longer over so I can absorb the information. If I’m really enjoying a fiction book (proper page turner stuff) I can sometimes find myself needing to slow down because I start reading so fast I miss words. But overall I don’t have any hard and fast rules about it. Whatever feels right.
I did stop doing the Goodreads Challenge because of the focus on quantity rather than quality. Instead I seek out what I think I will enjoy the most and read it at whatever pace feels good.
I read on average a book a week. I don’t tend to read every day, maybe 5 days a week.
When I read I tend to do it for a few hours at a time but it’s not an intentional decision to read it quickly to “get it checked off my list” or something.
It’s like how some people watch 2-3 episodes of TV at one time. I just sit and read for 2-3 hours instead.