What sort of books are they reading that only has 50,000 words? Lord of the Rings has over 480,000 words for all 3 books. Harry Potter has over a million for 7 books. Enders Game has 100,000.

Plus this isn't taking into account that I like to read more technical about my profession which take me longer.

> The average American reads 200–400 words per minute (Since you’re on Medium, I’m going to assume you read 400 wpm like me)

and that assumption is probably a bad assumption. I do tend to read rather slowly.