It’s Friday, so it’s time for the Book Blogger Hop again, hosted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer. I’ve made my own image from a stock photo (credit: Anna Shvets) to avoid adding images created via generative AI to my blog. Feel free to use it too if you would like!

This week’s prompt is about reading speeds:

What’s the fastest or slowest you’ve ever finished a book?

I’m not quite sure how to answer this one, honestly! I’ve read some manga and poetry collections incredibly quickly, like between 10-15 minutes, but… for a 300-page book, I’d say probably an hour and a half is about my usual. Maybe closer to an hour if it’s quite fast-paced and there’s illustrations or something — I’ve read some of my danmei collection pretty fast for that reason!

On the other end of things, it’s usually non-fiction that takes me the longest. I remember The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscripts Club took me a while in terms of hours, though I read it in quite big chunks, so I think I finished it within about two weeks.

If it’s in terms of how many sittings/how many days to finish, then one sitting is the fastest and I’ve finished many books on the same day I started them.

As for slowest… that’s more difficult. I have a semi-ongoing reread of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that’s been ongoing for probably a couple of years now, but that’s because I mostly don’t pick it up, and then some days the whim hits and I’ll read 100 pages at a time.

You’d be surprised to hear though that War and Peace only took me seven days, and I’ve read the entirety of The Lord of the Rings in a single 24-hour period — in both cases, someone bet me I couldn’t do it, and I’m contrary as heck, so I did.