Speed-reading a Man-Booker-shortlisted novel – with help from an app called Spritz – was a thrilling ride that left me in agony
Last week, I decided to perform an experiment. At midday precisely, I sat on my couch to see if I could knock off a Man-Booker-shortlisted novel by teatime.
That’s not as easy as it sounds. The book I picked was To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris – at 110,000 words or so, it’s not particularly lengthy, but given that the average adult reader clocks in at between 250 and 300 words per minute (according to a 2012 study), it would still take around six hours to finish. And that’s without considering the weighty subject matter: a Manhattan dentist dealing with a crisis of faith after a religious group steals his identity. Clearly, demolishing it by three or four o’clock was somewhat ambitious.
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That’s not as easy as it sounds. The book I picked was To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris – at 110,000 words or so, it’s not particularly lengthy, but given that the average adult reader clocks in at between 250 and 300 words per minute (according to a 2012 study), it would still take around six hours to finish. And that’s without considering the weighty subject matter: a Manhattan dentist dealing with a crisis of faith after a religious group steals his identity. Clearly, demolishing it by three or four o’clock was somewhat ambitious.
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