Hacker News Reader

I would think 3/4 hours is a very optimistic time to read any decent novel. Though I'm not really sure what the length of a decent novel would be but most books I have read would take at least 8 hours.

View on HN

I was thinking the same, there's a difference between reading the words and imbibing the content. It takes me a good 3-4 weeks to read a novel @ 2 hours a night. With great focus I could read the words in 8 hours, but I wouldn't have had a chance to think, reason, predict and digest, which I think is most of the fun!

I'm so glad you pointed this out. I was starting to feel really intimidated and bad about my reading skill.

More than a few times have I seen absurd wpm numbers mentioned in a blasé manner here. 500wpm is quite achievable for a light thriller, skimming the odd paragraph. Approaching 100% comprehension provides dimishing returns with this kind of stuff. I am very happy to average 50wpm with technical or entirely novel material, since here the opposite is usually true.

Maxing at 200wpm is absolutely fine. All that (imo) matters, is it's a total waste - and a mentally taxing one at that - to spend those words/minutes reading crap & looking at adverts!

Edit: no rudeness intended to the fast readers ITT!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com