I’m always fascinated by people who can read multiple books in a week and even a book a day.

Even when I didn’t have a wife and two children and would spend a good chunk of my Saturday’s in bed reading I would struggle to read more than 150 pages.  Back then, during those those listless days when I had 12 hours a week of of Uni-time (my busiest year, thank you Arts degree) I was doing well if I finished two books a week.  It was the 90s and the average book – Stephen King aside – was less than 350 pages*.

These day I aim for 45 pages a day.  I have a complex time management system in place to ensure I hit 45 pages a day.  But work that out over 7 days and it’s about 315 pages.  So, on average, about 65% of your regular genre novel**.  Because I this I often find myself dithering over what to choose next to read.  There’s so many genre and literary novels I want to catch up with – and not just books published this year – that it’s near impossible to make a decision.

I know this is a first world problem.  In fact you’d be hard pressed to actually describe it as a problem.  But yes I do a feel a tinge of envy… jealousy… when others describe what they’ve read over a month and I realise I’d struggle to read a third of that.

* Estimation NOT based on science or actual evidence.

** See note above.

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