/lit/ - Literature

Momni po dyed it at fading

>you'll never finish any of your backlogs

>>7853572

>have plenty of free time to read
>choose to spend 95% of it shitposting on 4chan

>try reading a book
>enjoy it, read for what felt like 30 minutes
>but 8 hours actually went by in real life while I was reading

People here love to talk about how 4chan is a useless timesink but I literally cannot read books as often as I would like because they chew up entire days at a time.

>>7853742
IKTF

>already starting to forget smaller details in books I read a year ago and are due for a rereading
>all while adding more books to my backlog

>>7853572
You should only read iifym.

There should be guides for more effective (especially faster) reading in the OP.

>when you die, you will probably be in the middle of reading a book
>you will never finish it

>>7854046
Then I really hope it's something like The Pale King.

>>7853572
>tfw shit at reading
inb4 it's not a skill

>>7854027
Wewwwww, obscure reference to that garbage of a board /fit/

>>7853572
The average reading speed is roughly 2 minutes per page. Suppose the average book is 240-480 pages. Take the mean of 240 and 480, 360, for simplicity sake. It follows that it would take you about 12 hours to finish a book. Now, Bloom's 'Western Canon' is roughly 1530 books which is 765 days or 2 years of reading time. Not too shabby, eh? Now that's just literature. Suppose you wanted to take up and read some grade-A philosophy (all of it: ancient, medieval, modern, continental, and analytic, all the way up to contemporary research) and higher mathematics (undergraduate and graduate textbooks) and theoretical physics (undergraduate and graduate textbooks) in addition to literature. Now, the philosophy books will for obvious reasons dwarf the mathematics and physics textbooks, but let's go ahead and assume that Bloom's 'Western Canon', consisting of 1530 books, is equal to the amount of books in philosophy, mathematics, and physics, combined. That's 2x1530 or 3060 books total and roughly 4 years of reading.

Assuming that you're in your 20s now and, ceteris paribus, you're genetically predisposed to live past 80, 4 years is something you shouldn't whine about.

>>7854100
>4 years of non-stop reading
how many decades are that in reality?

>>7853572

>tfw so few books
>tfw so much time

Quality over quantity you turboplebs

>>7854113
2 hours each day = 12 * 4 = 48 years
1 hour each day = 24 * 4 = 96 years
F-fun

>>7854100
Average reading time will include people that barely read as well reading so much you should get to reading a page a minute quite easily.
Also philosophy books are harder than general literature so would take longer unless its superficial reading.

>>7854100
>Suppose the average book is 240-480 pages
You're far off, it's around 250 maybe less. It's nowhere near 480 pages, very seldom are books over 1000 pages, but a huge amount are around 100.

>>7854173
>According to Amazon’s great Text Stats feature, the median length for all books is about 64,000 words
That's almost exactly 250 pages.

>>7854126
>2 hours each day = 12 * 4 = 48 years
That's only 32 books a year, pretty low amount. I read around 100 a year, which means I'd get through the Western Canon in around 15 years (if I only read books that it includes), not bad.

>>7854173
>>7854181
The average of all books, sure, but I don't think I've read a book under 300 pages in months. Actual worthwhile literature tends to be longer.

>>7854220
>Actual worthwhile literature tends to be longer.
kek

>>7853572
>tfw

>>7854228
about half of this is total shit.

>>7854241
Many of those are in Bloom's Western Canon, that's what we were talking about. It also has a lot of poetry and plays, which also takes the average down.

>>7854113
Spread it out according to your reading habits and you'll settle upon a rough estimate. Change the variables if there's a need, too.

My example only serves as an illustration. Obviously no one is going to commit himself to ALL of the Canon, neither do the 1530 books for the joint category of philosophy, maths, and physics, make much sense. Maybe it does, but I think it's far less than that. I don't see why ~500 books of the best literature and ~500 books of the best philosophy, maths, and physics, combined (= 1000), isn't a good estimate and aim to strive for. If we decrease the pages per book to about 250 ala >>7854173, then, reading for about 2 hours a day, you're looking at ~11 years total, which is doable.

>>7854126
>he only reads 1-2 hours a day
laughingbooknerds.js

>>7854173
>Also philosophy books are harder than general literature so would take longer unless its superficial reading.
That's correct.

>>7854138
>You're far off
The thing is, you're no less far off than I was. My estimate was based on a quick google search. An actual estimate would require a study; neither of us have it at hand so there's no point in exchanging anecdotes.

>>7854228
>how do averages work
I could make an equally long list of doorstoppers. The point is an average literary novel would be closer to 400 than 250.

>>7854269
>The point is an average literary novel would be closer to 400 than 250.
>how do averages work
Right back at you. For the average to be 400, almost half of the books would have to be 1000 pages, if half are 200 (and a huge amount of them are, if we count novellas and plays, even if we don't they're not often over 300 pages, and rarely over 400).

The quality of a book isn't correlated with the length, the average is the same no matter the length, learn some statistics.

>>7854269
Here's the length of books I've read this year (the average bolded). Even with WAR & PEACE and GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL being 2 out of 36, the average is still around 240 pages and that's a huge percentage from the actual amount of books that are over 1000 pages.

i feel ya anon