How many books you can read in a month? [Archive]

Simao

11-07-2007, 05:59 AM

I am asking this to share with the forum members of how many books they can read in a month(by book I mean 500 pages of so ) so.. Share your views!
Currently I am reading like 3-4 books a month that is like 4 hours a day abit more or less.

ballb

11-07-2007, 03:35 PM

wow! Are you retired? I don`t own a TV set and I cannot get through that many books a month. I assume you have a pretty good reading speed. I am a plodder.

applepie

11-07-2007, 05:05 PM

For me it depends on what it is that I'm reading. I normally read two to three "real" books. For me this means authors with more literary merit. Normally it includes at least one thing by Shakespeare. I also read one or two "fluff" books a week, so on average six to eight a month. These include things mostly general fiction type books by authors like Dan Brown and others.

Granny5

11-07-2007, 05:21 PM

thegreenthing

11-07-2007, 05:29 PM

This kinda makes me feel ashamed... I can't find the time to read more than 1 or 2 books/month. Just have too much else to do; school, watching movies, fishing, playing guitar etc.

Sweets America

11-07-2007, 05:30 PM

I try to read at least one good history book a month. I love history. I have been trying to finish something with merit each month by Hemingway, Faulkner, etc
Then I re-read TLOTR or 1984 or Animal Farm or The Stand. The Lord of The Rings/Hobbit are my all time favorite books and I read and re-read them all the time. Then there is the 'guilty' reading I do, Nora Roberts, Dan Brown, Stephen King....I just don't have the time to read as much as I use to or as much as I'd like. I usually finish 4 books a month.

Why would you feel guilty to read Stephen King? :( It is so strange how so many people despise him. (I'm not talking about you here, it's a generality). I know I'm biased on this question because I love the man very deeply and I have great respect for him and his writing. He is my favorite author and I'm not ashamed to say it. To me, he has a real gift in story-telling, and his characters are so greatly depicted, and his stories original and captivating, often sad. He describes friendships and childhood so well. There is this special atmosphere in his books, special to me. I have always felt at home with him. :) I wish I could give him a hug and say thank you.

Granny5

11-07-2007, 05:46 PM

Why would you feel guilty to read Stephen King? :( It is so strange how so many people despise him. (I'm not talking about you here, it's a generality). I know I'm biased on this question because I love the man very deeply and I have great respect for him and his writing. He is my favorite author and I'm not ashamed to say it. To me, he has a real gift in story-telling, and his characters are so greatly depicted, and his stories original and captivating, often sad. He describes friendships and childhood so well. There is this special atmosphere in his books, special to me. I have always felt at home with him. :) I wish I could give him a hug and say thank you.
I'm not ashamed that I enjoy some of Kings work, I just feel like there's better work that I should read. But, I love the Stand. I think it should be required reading. I also like his early work.

raptorfan

11-07-2007, 05:58 PM

I really don't read wso i say 0
but if i tried i could probably read 2

Sweets America

11-07-2007, 06:08 PM

I'm not ashamed that I enjoy some of Kings work, I just feel like there's better work that I should read. But, I love the Stand. I think it should be required reading. I also like his early work.

I see. It is just that I wonder sometimes about 'the better books that we should read'. Some authors are praised and some are despised, but it should really be a matter of personal preference rather than a matter of the authors that have to be read. But I know that was not what you meant. :) I have read 33 books by King and I never got bored. I got wonderful feelings. I love Hearts in Atlantis. I love books in which he talks about his life and writings too, that is quite funny. I like his old books and his new ones, but I've had no time to read lately. :( And I really would like to read his series called The Dark Tower, I've only read 3 books and a half of it, but that was long ago so I would need to start again from the beginning. What I love also in his books is that when reading a book, you meet characters that you had already met in another book, and those are such pleasant surprises, and you understand better what happened in the other book you read before. It's all linked, and that is wonderful. Anyway, I'm off topic so I should stop.:p

Niamh

11-07-2007, 06:48 PM

I can read up to 8 books a month but at the moment i'm going through a slacked stage and i'm lazily getting through two.

Nico87

11-07-2007, 06:50 PM

Depends. If I read several book from the same author I usually read em pretty quick. Right now I'm reading Raymond Chandler.

thelastmelon

11-07-2007, 07:05 PM

Last year I read a total of 76 books, so that's 6,3 books a month. So far this year I've read 61 books, so about 6 books a month so far this year as well. :D

mS_?

11-07-2007, 11:33 PM

I've never counted, I read too much though, yes there is such a thing, it's most of what I do when I am not in school.

Beverly S

11-07-2007, 11:59 PM

Right now (since I'm taking some college classes and am very busy) I'm reading about one book a month. Usually I can read about two or three books a month. I'm looking forward to the semester ending!

Simao

11-08-2007, 05:45 AM

wow! Are you retired? I don`t own a TV set and I cannot get through that many books a month. I assume you have a pretty good reading speed. I am a plodder.

Lol, Retired? I am 23 years old! It's just i work in a facility really far from the city. It's like a place of it's own its like 4 hours from modern life lol. But anywho, yeah I get really bored especially when work finishes so I don't have anything except reading and I am loving it!
And on the Stephen King thing, I only started reading him(since we don't really have translations for his books until recently) I am reading The Running Man and its really good. I love how he predicts stuff in the future like Free V (for TV) lol its funny in a way. I read Dan Brown but I think he over describe stuff in his work especially in Angels and Demons. Both are good though.

Gadget Girl

11-08-2007, 01:09 PM

Hmm, probably two books a month. That's because I have a whole lot to do so I don't really have much time in reading. LitNet added. :D

Old Crow

11-08-2007, 01:30 PM

Sadly, I am usually unable to read more than two 500+ page novels in a month, which is why I take my selection of which books to read way too seriously.

LadyWentworth

11-08-2007, 04:36 PM

I used to really be able to go at it. I could read up to 4/5 books a month. For me that was a lot with work and other events in life. Now I am lucky if I can read 2. I don't know what it has been lately. It is like I don't have energy (for lack of a better word) to read so many books at a time. This is coming from a person that read all 1024 pages of Gone With The Wind in only 5 days when she was 12!!!! Now I am lucky if I read half of that in a month!

Simao

11-09-2007, 08:08 AM

This is coming from a person that read all 1024 pages of Gone With The Wind in only 5 days when she was 12!!!! Now I am lucky if I read half of that in a month!

Don't you miss those days when you were young and full of life? Now it is just the time to wait for the peacful grave after a long exhusting life in the elderly's home where you are so weak that the only reason that you can't read a book is that you can't hold the book because it is too heavy at your age. Sad, its very sad. But you just have to live the few days left in your life weeping the past and fearing the uknown near death.
Lol, j/k. But this could be an idea for a novel don't you say?

aabbcc

11-09-2007, 04:07 PM

A lot.

In good times, my weekly average circles around 5-6; in slightly worse times, around 3, and times are never truly that bad that I do not get through at least a book or two each week; so I end up reading anything from 10 to 30 books per month. Of course, this oscillates, and the number is rarely at any of the extremes, but usually somewhere in-between.

I read pretty much everywhere; I get to travel very often and thus get to spend a lot of time in trains; I read during my lectures at school instead of focusing on school work; I read multiple books at once. Over the course of time, reading has become my routine which I simply fit into my day.
My main interests circle around philosophy, politics/history, comparative (European) literature, and random things from other fields; so I often end up reading a funny mix of completely diverse things. :)

JBI

11-09-2007, 05:17 PM

on my 207th book this year. Though that includes shorter novels and poetry and short story anthologies.

ivette

11-10-2007, 12:04 PM

I don't have a lot of time because I have so much work to do for school. And then I am happy if I read a book or two in a month. And even these books are usually just books for homereading, so again for school. :(
I'm quite miserable because of that and I try to read more between school holidays. In the summer I usually read two or three books per a week.

zionforsale

11-12-2007, 01:48 AM

I read probably 8 books a month. But I pace them out: one huge one (the classic type), two modern award-winning ones, two classic plays or poetry (or I substitute them with easy classics that are not so demanding), two entertaining ones, and one reference (about a subject). I read pieces everyday but those don't count. I'm a lit major, so I read going to sleep, read waking up, read in class, read at home. That is my rate when I go to school. But if it is holiday or break then the amount shoots up to 10, 12, sometimes 13 books a month. I have always been reading that now it doesn't take me too long to read anymore. I also read books in other languages as well.

There are two months in a year (one in summer, one in winter) where I don't read any new book, but re-read in each month eight books (of my choice) that I had already read from the last months. This is how I remember everything I read that I think is important.

I don't count short stories or just sonnets or poems because I read those everyday. Oh, the life of being a Lit student, I wish it never ends!

Gadget Girl

11-12-2007, 01:50 AM

:eek: Wow zion! How do you do that? That's incredible.

bibliophile190

11-12-2007, 02:15 AM

I usually read around 3 or 4 a month during school. Though that goes down to about one during my drama season. Your reading time goes down a bit when you get to school at seven in the morning and don't leave till nine at night.

During the summer, I can usually read seven or eight a month.

Oniw17

11-12-2007, 04:01 AM

I had a thread similar to this on a science forum I frequent. After reading the responses it got I felt kind of ashamed(the one guy said that the most he's ever read was 3 400 page books in a day, and most of them said that they read too fast to say the words to themselves in their head), but after reading these responses I have the opposite feeling. If I'm reading a philosophy book or some book on a particular branch of science that I'm not very well-versed in, it can take me up to a week to finish, and at least 4-5 days. However, for a fantasy, psychology, or mystery book, or for some not-so-deep sci-fi book of the length specified in the OP, it usually takes me a day if I actually take time out to read it, and at the most 3 if I read between doing things. I take breaks from reading when I have money to go chill though, so I'd say I usually read 6 or 7 books in a month, unless it's one of the months when I read nothing but philosophy(this happens to me every so often when I feel like an idiot for a short period of time).

zionforsale

11-12-2007, 06:14 AM

:eek: Wow zion! How do you do that? That's incredible.

I had really strict-about-literature parents when I was a kid. They used to schedule my readings and the books get more and more difficult every month. So now I'm used to it. Plus, it doesn't help that my lit professor is very demanding and we have a lot to read as well. I thought about reading a bit slower, but just can't. (then again I have those two reviewing months so I won't forget everything I read)

It also helps I'm a full-time student. :) I'm so dreadfully afraid of when I'll have to work and be too tired to read.

bazarov

12-01-2007, 04:20 PM

3 or 4, but I really don't remember when did I last time read something shorter then 400 pages. Plus university...
Before university, about 15 per month. I was eating them!

Dori

12-01-2007, 04:31 PM

3 or 4, but I really don't remember when did I last time read something shorter then 400 pages. Plus university...
Before university, about 15 per month. I was eating them!

:eek: My gosh, Baz, good thing binge reading is not an eating disorder :D .

Now my natural competitveness is kicking in (*I must read 16 books a month!* :p ).

bazarov

12-01-2007, 04:33 PM

:eek: My gosh, Baz, good thing binge reading is not an eating disorder :D .

Now my natural competitveness is kicking in (*I must read 16 books a month!* :p ).

Yes. Well, some books still have smashed potatoes or ketchup on covers :lol:

Bakiryu

12-01-2007, 05:14 PM

I usually check out 2 books from my local library every one day or two, so It's around one or two a day. Usually I don't have time to read so I just get around 20 to 25 books a month. :( I wish I had more time to read.

Sometimes I do check out books that actually take me a whole week but my library has very few Shakespeare and I don't think they actually like Nietzsche. :(

manolia

12-02-2007, 12:31 PM

3 or 4, but I really don't remember when did I last time read something shorter then 400 pages. Plus university...
Before university, about 15 per month. I was eating them!

:eek2: :eek2:
When i was at university i couldn't read 1 book a month (you know me being a civil engineer..all these concrete and steel reading took up all my energy :lol: )

I usually check out 2 books from my local library every one day or two, so It's around one or two a day. Usually I don't have time to read so I just get around 20 to 25 books a month. :( I wish I had more time to read.

:eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:
I am speechless.. let me say how much i admire what you just said :thumbs_up

pussnboots

12-02-2007, 01:22 PM

I can read about 30 - 40 a month.:lol:

manolia

12-02-2007, 01:25 PM

I can read about 30 - 40 a month.:lol:

:lol: :lol: Ok, it's like an auction..who has 50? Can i see 50? :lol: :lol:

Annamariah

12-03-2007, 07:07 PM

When I was still in comprehensive school, I used to read two books every day. Nowadays I don't have that much time any more.

During the school year I sometimes read only a couple of books per month, but on summer when I have a holiday I usually read about 20 books per month, sometimes even more. You know, those long days on summer cottage when you don't have much else to do than sunbathe and read... My friend once sent me a text message:

"Anna, I had to text you 'cause I'm worried. Henna told me you've read THREE books in one day. I'm afraid your head will explode or something."

I AM JINX

12-04-2007, 09:26 AM

Depends on how many pages are inside the book. :)
But I can get through a 300 page book in one day, because I have nothing better to do half the time.
^_^

bazarov

12-04-2007, 12:22 PM

:eek2: :eek2:
When i was at university i couldn't read 1 book a month (you know me being a civil engineer..all these concrete and steel reading took up all my energy :lol: )

Hey, I will also became civil engineer :D Of course, then you realize why I must postpone some books for holidays :(

Bakiryu

12-04-2007, 05:34 PM

:eek2: :eek2: :eek2: :eek2:
I am speechless.. let me say how much i admire what you just said :thumbs_up

:blush: :blush: :blush: Thank you.

It's all well until you hit a wall while walking and reading. Or almost get run-over. Again.

grace86

12-04-2007, 05:39 PM

I am ashamed :bawling: all you guys leave me ambitious!!!!!

PanzaFan

12-04-2007, 06:45 PM

I used to read two books a week but I have been forced to slowdown and my taste in books has changed so now I read heavier stuff and read about one every week or two. I have never really understood why reading romance novels and mysteries and such isn't given the credit that reading "classics" gets. Reading is reading isn't it? I classify it heavy or light reading but I still consider that both take time, one just requires more careful study than the other and both are ten times better than watching t.v.
Answer: 4 or 5 books a month

Dori

12-04-2007, 08:35 PM

I have never really understood why reading romance novels and mysteries and such isn't given the credit that reading "classics" gets. Reading is reading isn't it? I classify it heavy or light reading but I still consider that both take time, one just requires more careful study than the other and both are ten times better than watching t.v.

Most people generally believe that classics are more meritorious; this is a logical conclusion because all classics have passed the test of time (well, at least thus far).

papayahed

12-04-2007, 09:12 PM

So far I've read 22 books this year and that comes out to 2 books a month.

I'm wondering how fast everybody reads, I think I'll time myself later.

Instead of doing anything constructive I decided to time my reading.

I took 5 books:

Pride and Prejudice
Midnights Children
American Psycho
Return of the Native
Absalom, Absalom

Those books were chosen because they were handy, provided differing reading levels, and different font type on the page.

I timed myself for 5 minutes for each book except P&P which was 3 min and 8 min. This maybe too small a test run but I'm only slightly curious.

I got a range of 33 - 45 pages/hr with an average of 37 pages/hour.

Poetentially if I devoted 1 hour a day to reading in one month I could knock out possibly three books a month (taking an average of 300 pages/book) and the most possibly without eating or sleeping would be ~90.

manolia

12-05-2007, 10:58 AM

Hey, I will also became civil engineer :D Of course, then you realize why I must postpone some books for holidays :(

You are a fellow civil ? :) :) :) :) Hehehe now i like you more than before :lol: :lol: :lol: j/k
My sincere condolensces :lol: :lol:
What domain interests you most?

:blush: :blush: :blush: Thank you.

It's all well until you hit a wall while walking and reading. Or almost get run-over. Again.

Don't thank me ;) . You strike me as a remarkable young lady ;)

So far I've read 22 books this year and that comes out to 2 books a month.

At last!! Someone with the same amount of books per year like me ;)

bazarov

12-05-2007, 03:00 PM

You are a fellow civil ? :) :) :) :) Hehehe now i like you more than before :lol: :lol: :lol: j/k
My sincere condolensces :lol: :lol:
What domain interests you most?

Currently constructions, I think I will specialize it. I hope I could do some really interesting works, small houses, roads and playgrounds doesn't look to interesting to me, at least now.

Dori

12-05-2007, 05:06 PM

Scheherazade

12-05-2007, 05:50 PM

Instead of doing anything constructive I decided to time my reading.Aaahh! Another day well-spent! :D

Last edited by papayahed : Today at 03:33 AM. Reason: added experimental data :lol:

Pensive

12-06-2007, 03:54 AM

I can read about 30 - 40 a month.

:lol: :lol: Ok, it's like an auction..who has 50? Can i see 50? :lol: :lol:

I can read more than hundred. You see there are a few children story-books full of beautiful pictures. :p But the thing is I don't. And those I do, I hardly ever count but as the thread demands from me to do so, I guess they would have to be at least about five to ten per month (not counting books for my school exams).

Remarkable

12-06-2007, 05:52 AM

I read abot two books a week when I'm busy so that makes eight books a month,but if I don't have much to do,I could read even three or four books a week,especially in summer.The point is,it is not important the amount of books you read,but what they contain and what you get from it.Of course,one book a year doesn't count...But it is impossible to read fifty books in a month,for the simple reason that you wouldn't have any time to eat,let alone anything else...It's just maths...

Orpheus

12-08-2007, 02:10 AM

Lately I've been reading a lot of shorter books (under 300 pgs) due to the fact that at this time I am busier than I have ever been. Usually I read 2-3 of these a week. However, in the summer I was reading something like 8-9 larger books per month. How I miss the summer.

Morwen

12-08-2007, 08:01 AM

Fortunately, my studies require a lot of reading so I read something new each week. If I don't have anything to do, I can read up to 200 pages a day, but I feel eyestrain afterwards. Anyway, I think it doesn't matter how many book a month you can read. It's great that you read at all. ;D