How long do you read? Please answer so I can improve my skills.

[ihavebrownhaira]

10 hours. Jesus. That is a lot of reading. Your brain must have been on fire. That is very impressive my friend. I am jealous. You have the attention span of a god. Jesus christ 10 hours.

You are absolutely right. I enjoy the simple straight forward style. I don't believe its because I am simple minded. It has to do with my personality. The music I listen to is pretty straight forward, but it has style. Style is the answer to everything. Doing a dull thing with style is better than doing a dangerous thing without style. Stole that line from a Bukowski poem haha. 10 hours my friend. Jesus christ jesus christ jesus christ. Pass that gift on to me. How do you do it?

[subterranean]

No. That's exchanging of opinion.

Excuse, excuse.
ihavebrownhaira, as I posted before, longer hours of reading doesn't exactly improve your reading skill. You could gain much more by only reading for 1 or 2 hours a day compare to 5 or 10 hours if you really know how to read. But again, as someone mentioned, depending on the topics/contents, you may need to spend more hours on certain books compare to others.

[ihavebrownhaira]

subterranean homesick alien I completely agree with you. I believe if one knows how to think critically and analyze ones reading that they can gain much more from the text in a shorter amount of time. I also believe it depends on what a person is reading. I believe a person can gain a lot more from reading Edgar Allen Poe for 2 hours than reading Nora Roberts for 10 hours. Shes horrible. She should be banned and hung for writing that mass produced garbage.

[ihavebrownhaira]

This is not enough! How long do you people read at a time?!

[papayahed]

hmm, depends on the book. Most of the time I read for about half an hour before bed but sometimes if the book is really good I could sit most of the day and read, allowing for bathroom and eating breaks of course. That's about a solid answer I can give unless I got out my stop watch and timed my reading but then again I'm not the most proficeint reader here.

[weltanschauung]

subterranean homesick alien

50 points just for that

i'd show them the stars
and the meaning of life
they'd shut me away
but i'd be all right
all right..

[ihavebrownhaira]

Yea man we have a radiohead fan haha!

[Wilde woman]

I was wondering how long do you hold on while you read? I try to read for an hour or two. I try not to read for more than two hours straight because it hurts my eyes. In my opinion reading for an hour or two is impressive. I read on average 3 hours a day. I was just wondering how long some of you experts read?

It really depends, but I usually read about .5-2 hours a day. Usually late at night and sometimes I'll read through the night if the book is really good. I got my BA in comparative literature...does that make me one of your "experts"?

I don't think reading for long periods at a time makes you a better reader. When I read for too long, the words all just start to blur together. I think a better measure of a good reader is how long it takes a person to finish a book. Some people stop and start again, letting months at a time pass and by the time they return to the book, they've forgotten everything they've already read. By the time they finish it, they've gotten nothing out of the book other than the meaningless claim that they read it. Doesn't matter if you finished The Light in August if it took you a year to do it.

BTW, if you like Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemingway at age 18, you're way ahead of most high school students. Admittedly those aren't my favorites, but you must be quite intelligent if you can understand Faulkner on your first read-through. Absalom, Absalom! was the first book I read for class when I went to college; it almost scared me away from the major.

Good luck!

[kasie]

Ihbh - if you are at college full-time and you have a job and you manage a couple of hours reading a day, then, imo, you are not doing too badly!

As other posters have said, it's not the length of time you read but the quality of that reading that counts. Half an hour's reading with no interruptions or distractions is better than many hours with a book but with friends talking at you or the television or radio burbling away in the background. And, as Wilde woman said, the length of time it takes you to finish the book is relevant too - that reflects how closely you have been able to concentrate on the text and how you have been able to absorb it as a whole rather than in scattered passages with wide gaps of time in between.

I am retired so in theory I could read all day - but I have too much to do! I read most days, sometimes just over a meal but sometimes for several hours at a time, though my eyes ache next day if I do that too often. I once read through the day to three in the morning in an attempt to get through The Brothers Karamazov in time for a seminar the next week and awoke rather bleary-eyed next morning to discover I had burst a blood vessel in one eye, so beware eye-strain from reading too long at one sitting. (No, I didn't finish it in time for the seminar, I was banned from reading for the rest of the week by a tut-tutting doctor, and no, I've never been able to bring myself to go back and finish it - I only have to pick it up to re-live the horror of seeing my red-eyed reflection in the mirror. )

[ihavebrownhaira]

A burst blood vessel from reading? Jesus rice. That is scary. Your poor eyes my friend. We must be gentle with our eyes. They are our friends. My Grandmother is 86 and even though she is deaf and overweight with heart failure she still has beautiful eyes. And she stares at me and her eyes are black at night and there really is not much going on up there, but they are still strong. And she is strong even though there is not much going on with her. She reads quite often. I have fairly poor vision which I believe is genetic. But a popped blood vessel. That sounds terrible. Can you read now or is it permanent?

[optimisticnad]

LIke others have said, it really does depend on what you're reading. For example, Umbert Eco is a bit more taxing than ...Nora Robert! So you will get less done. I usually read 20 minutes in one sitting, then move on. In a day I'd say I do an hour minimum - not all in one go. I think this way is best - gives you more time to digest what you've read. Reading isn't a passive activity like so many people think, it's active. And if you feel you're just reading but not absorbing/understanding/analysing than you need to stop and take a break. I'm a quick reader - very quick - so I'd say I get more done in my twenty minutes than others do in half an hour. But This isn't a competition and everybody works differently.

[sofia82]

As others said, it depends on the book. Maybe one hour or maybe till the book finished considering meals and other interruptions ;
And also it depends on the day (work, homework, other things). Regarding this, one hour some days to 7-8 hours other days. And sometimes nothing. Once I used to read 10 hours a day of course all 10 hours were not just for reading novels and poetry for free time but exams

[Shea]

Shea I am actually interested in becoming a high school English teacher. I've gotten on very well with my teachers in the past. Maybe you can offer me some advice. How tough is it earning your bachelors in lit?

Well I went the round about way, since I was pre-med, then nursing. But when I settled into lit, I found it very easy I think because it truely was what I was interested in. Even though, I'm currently not working in a field where I would use my degree directly, I still appreciate my experience and would really love to go back and get my masters.

The best advise that I can give you is to substitue teach a lot. I only did it for about a half a year before I got a teaching position and then I hadn't subbed at that school. A big part of me misses being in the classroom, but a slightly bigger part doesn't miss having way more students than I could handle, dealing with kids that needed to be in special ed classes (since I never recieved training in that), or pointless staff meetings at least 3 times a week where nothing was ever accomplished.

Anyway, I don't want to turn you off of pursuing it, because it can be very rewarding, but part of my problem was that I didn't have time to look into the school that extended the position. The school year had already started and I needed the job. If you have the luxury, hold out for a good spot. (btw, I also taught at a very racist school, which made certain pieces difficult to teach due to stubborn, thick-headed....) I'll stop now...

Oh, and a book that I would recommend, probably because it's what I'm reading right now, Douglas Adams' Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy. That is a fun read!!

[andave_ya]

because I'm a senior, probably no more than half an hour a day, an hour or so on the weekends. Although I do snatch a minute here and there - mea culpa mea culpa - so perhaps a bit more .

[kasie]

Thanks, Ihbh, the burst blood vessel healed itself and has not recurred, so far, but I do have to be careful not to read too long at a sitting or I can feel the eye-strain setting in again. You are right - eye-sight is precious and we should do all we can to preserve it.