Word counts and reading speeds

Useful information. From Word Count for Famous Novels by Steph Mineart. Here's a site for testing your reading speed, Speed Reading Test Online. From that site,

If top readers read at speeds of above 1000 words per minute (wpm) with near 85% comprehension, they only represent 1% of readers. Average readers are the majority and only reach around 200 wpm with a typical comprehension of 60%. This seems surprising since most readers, actively reading work documents, newspapers, magazines, books or the contents of a computer display are practicing daily for at least one hour. With such an intense training everyone should be close to top performances.

Unfortunately, this is far from the real situation. The average reader is five times slower than the good reader. Things are even worse if we consider reading efficiency as well as speed. Reading efficiency is reading speed weighted by comprehension rate and it amounts to 200 x 60% or 120 efficient words per minute (ewpm) for the average reader and to 1000 x 85% or 850 ewpm for top readers. Thus, an efficiency ratio of seven divides these two categories.

On one site, a commenter observes that there are "different 'averages' depending on the sort of reading one did. For 'pleasure' reading, or for comprehension, the speed was considered to be around 200 words per minute. For learning or memorizing it was around 100 wpm."

So if the average novel is about 100,000 words and the average reading speed is 200 words per minute, then the amount of time required to read an average novel is 8.3 hours. If the circumstances of your job and family life constrain you to reading only half an hour a day (a supposition), then you would read a novel every 17 days, or 21 books a year. That's for someone in the habit of reading continuously.

The BLS time use surveys indicate that the average person spends about 6 minutes a day reading. On that basis, then, we would expect the average person to take 83 days to complete an average book at an average speed. Alternatively, the average person would complete 4.5 books a year.

All very rough and ready, but usefully indicative of the bounds.

An example of the number of words in particular books:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 26,432
Lion the Witch and the Wardrob 36, 363
Peter Pan 47,232
Wind in the Willows 58,428
Secret Garden 80,398

Philosopher’s Stone – 77,325
Chamber of Secrets – 84,799
Prisoner of Azkaban – 106,821
Goblet of Fire – 190,858
Order of the Phoenix – 257,154
Half Blood Prince – 169,441
Deathly Hallows – 198,227

The Hobbit – 95,022
The Lord of the Rings – 455,125
The Two Towers – 143,436
The Return of the King – 134,462