Calculator
Book reading time calculator
Enter a book's length as pages or words, and your reading speed, to get the total hours. Then pick a finish date to see the pages needed per day, or enter minutes per day to see how many days the book takes.
The tool
Average adult reading speed on screen and paper is often quoted near 200 to 250 words per minute; measure your own by timing a page. Pages are converted at the words-per-page value above.
How to use it
- Enter the book's length in pages, or in words.
- Enter your reading speed in words per minute or pages per hour.
- Read the total reading time in hours.
- Pick a finish date to see the pages needed each day.
- Or enter the minutes you can read each day to see the number of days.
Turning length and speed into hours
Total reading time is the length divided by the speed. A 300-page book read at 30 pages per hour takes 10 hours. With a word count, divide the words by your words per minute to get minutes, then divide by 60 to get hours. A 90,000-word novel read at 300 words per minute takes 5 hours. The speed unit must match the length unit, so pages go with pages per hour and words with words per minute. Reading time in hours is a clear figure to plan around, because it turns a long book into a number you can fit into a week.
Reading speed varies by book. Technical books usually read more slowly than novels, so a speed measured on one kind of book may not hold for another. To measure your own speed, time yourself reading a passage with a known word count, then divide the words by the minutes. The result is a starting figure that you can adjust as you read more. Measuring speed on a page of the actual book is more useful than taking a figure from an article, since books differ.
Planning a finish date or a daily habit
With a finish date, the calculator divides the pages by the number of days until that date. A 400-page book with 20 days left needs 20 pages a day. The result is a planning figure, and it assumes that you read the same amount each day without skipping any. If the length is in words, the same calculation applies once the speed is in words per minute. The calculator is useful for any date, such as a course deadline or a book club meeting, as well as a personal goal.
With minutes per day, the calculation runs the other way. Total reading minutes are divided by the minutes you can read each day, which gives the number of days. A 10-hour book at 30 minutes a day takes 20 days, and a 45-minute daily session shortens that to about 13 days. Shorter daily sessions stretch the same book over more days, which is worth knowing before a reading plan is set. A session length you can keep up is more useful than a long one you cannot repeat.
Rankings behind this tool
- Best ebook reader apps
KindleTop pick90.0then Apple Books, Readest - Best book tracking and discovery apps
GoodreadsTop pick91.0then Open Library, Douban Books - Best programming books
Designing Data-Intensive ApplicationsTop pick94.0then The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Best AI and machine learning books
Deep LearningTop pick94.5then Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction, Dive into Deep Learning - Best personal finance and investing books
The Psychology of MoneyTop pick92.0then The Little Book of Common Sense Investing, A Random Walk Down Wall Street - Best career and future-of-work books
Co-IntelligenceTop pick90.0then The Second Machine Age, Prediction Machines
Articles that go with this tool
All articles- Guides · 3 min readHow to choose an ebook reader app: store, formats, devicesChoose an ebook reader app by book source, file formats and devices. Compare Kindle, Apple Books, Readest, KOReader, Libby and calibre for your reading habits.
- Roundups · 5 min readBest books for learning to program, by goalPick a programming book by goal: a first language, one language in depth, how interpreters work or software craft. Compare free online books with paid titles.
- Roundups · 6 min readBest books for learning machine learning, from math to practiceFollow a machine learning reading path from math and statistics to code, research and edge devices. See which books are free to read online and which are paid.
Questions about the book reading time calculator
- How do I calculate how long a book takes to read?
- Divide the total pages by your reading speed in pages per hour. With a word count, divide the words by your words per minute, then by 60, to get hours.
- How many pages a day do I need to finish a book?
- Divide the pages by the number of days until your finish date. Enter the date in the calculator and it shows the pages needed per day.
- Can I enter the length as words?
- Yes. Enter a word count instead of pages, give your reading speed in words per minute, and read the total in hours.
- How accurate is a reading time estimate?
- It is an estimate. Reading speed depends on the book and the reader, so the figure is a planning aid, not a promise of how long you will take.
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