So like I don't appreciate this sort of thread normally, I feel like it pollutes our contexts. (Though I confess on some occasions saying to myself something like “this is going to get downvoted to hell, but I have the karma to afford that” so who am I to judge.)

But in this case, I wanted to say thank you to the folks in this thread for a different reason. This sort of comment actually helps me get a sort of side channel of information for this really implausible claim that he reads 5 books a day.

I have actually read five books a day for two days straight, it was intense. Like, “oh it's dark outside, I should probably eat something today” intense. The idea that you average that every day, goes from enthusiasm straight over to obsession. Voracious readers that I know tend to finish 100-200 books per year (which is also how they prefer to measure—who measures per day?!) so I don't think my personal experience is atypically slow.

And it's like, I read this comment thread and now I have more context... Okay, if this person is mostly known for moderating a blog, first off I can mentally degrade the claim to just, bragging about yourself on the internet, so sure, probably exaggerated... Maybe only does these binges once a week, but really does binge five books a day, just doesn't sustain it every day. But second, I mean, maybe he really is reading the sort of stuff that only merits 5 seconds per page, “okay so this person is from that school, they are hitting the major talking points, yada yada yada, oh hey, here's one atypical idea for folks from there, do I think that they are likely to have a second big idea, no, close book and consider it read.” One misses a certain luxurious Joy from reading this way, but if one was not reading joyous work in the first place then that's fine.

That in turn helps me better understand what the original article is trying to talk about, so kudos!