I've been reading the thread about how fast people read, and I am really kind of perplexed by all the answers. Seems like everyone is reading 50-100 pages per hour. For me, to be honest, that's insane.
I don't mean to offend anyone, but I really don't understand it.
I read 10-25 pages per hour, depends on the font size, page size, and difficulty of material.
Currently I'm reading War and Peace (started in June 2022, and going slowly, on and off).
I'm currently on around 1320th page (the total page count of this edition is around 1920 pages).
My average speed for this type of material is around 15 pages per hour.
I do have some difficulties with concentration, and sometimes some intrusive thoughts, or sometimes I go back to make sure I understand what I read... But even without these difficulties, I wouldn't be much faster. Perhaps instead of 15 pages per hour, I'd read 20 or 22 pages per hour of such type of material.
But that's it, can't go much faster than that. (I mean I could, but that would be unnatural and artificial pace for me, and I wouldn't feel that I am truly present with the characters in all the situations that are described in the book)
15 pages feel normal.
So I can't understand how on Earth people read 100 pages an hour? What kind of reading is that?
Perhaps it's different format of pages? Very easy material? Large font size... But even all these factors can't explain it fully to me.
When I read, I read roughly at the same pace as when I'm talking.
Sometimes even slower, because when I talk, I know exactly what I'm talking about. And when I read a classic like War and Peace, there is always new stuff, footnotes explaining French, some rarely used words, introduction of new characters and situations. So I read with the pace in which I can understand it all.
And I don't skip anything. I read the whole thing, every single word until I understand it.
15 pages doesn't seem slow to me. It seems normal.
If I read just 1 hour a day, with this pace, that would be 15x365 = 5475 pages a year, which is a lot!
It's 18 typical 300 pages books. For me that is completely fine and enough.
I don't have problems with my speed. I only wish I was more consistent and read each day for an hour.
In a year I could read tons of stuff... and thoroughly and with full understanding. With just 1 hours a day, at 15 pages per hour. For easier stuff, I could go even at 20-25 pages per hour, which would bring me to whopping 7300 to 9125 pages per year.
But even my conservative estimate of 18 books at 15 pages/hour is completely fine.
EDIT:
I did 2 reading speed tests online and I got results 143 WPM on the first, and 151 WPM on the second. And I'm constantly reading stuff on the Internet... if that counts too... like Reddit, BBC, etc... So this is my speed, my natural pace. I don't ever try to read fast, I just read at natural pace.