How Long Will It Take You to Read Your Book List?

If you're anything like me, you have a stack of unread books on your bedside table, and a "To Be Read" list as long as your arm. But how long will it take you to work through it all? Well, if you want a little insight, an infographic from Personal Creations might be able to help you out. They've estimated the time it would take the average person to read dozens of popular titles, to help you plan your future reading accordingly.

The data here is based on the average person's reading speed, which is about 300 words per minute. Of course, as Personal Creations themselves note, a person's reading speed is bound to vary based on the difficulty of the text they're reading. Someone reading The Giver by Lois Lowry is probably going to be taking in more words per minute than someone trying to piece together everything going on in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse . Still, this should give you an idea of the relative amount of time it might take you to read the titles on this list.

It also reveals quite a few unexpected details, like the fact that George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series is now longer than the Bible, or that Little Women and Jane Eyre are almost the exact same length.

So if you're curious to know how much time before you can buy more books (though really, the answer is always now), take a peek. And lest it feel too daunting, know this: assuming your reading speed averages out to 300 words per minute and you spent an hour a day reading, you could read through this entire (very long, impressive) list in two years. (Or, you know, you could always try Spritz if you want to speed up to 1,000 words per minute... think of all the possibilities.)

So it turns out being well-read isn't as crazy difficult as it seems.

Image: Personal Creations