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Books (lemmy.ml)
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Lucky me has been a speed reader basically from the start. I cannot imagine how painfully slow 238 words per minute must feel. The brain has probably forgotten half of the story when the reader reaches the end of a book weeks later. As a teenager, I already read about five books a day. Autism has its advantages...

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

The fastest 5% of readers can hit around 700-1000 words per minute, and if you're autistic with hyperlexia, you can process text at extremely fast speeds using both brain hemispheres simultaneously. The average novel is about 90,000 words, so at 1000 wpm that's 90 minutes per book, meaning 5 books would take you 7.5 hours of reading daily. More realistically at 700 wpm, you're looking at 10.7 hours per day.

If you can sustain 5 books per day, that's 1,825 books per year. To reach 20,000 books, you'd need about 11 years of consistent daily reading. The math becomes even more favorable when you consider shorter works like romance novels (89,000 words), young adult books (50,000-80,000 words), and short story collections (30,000 words).

If you started this pace in your teens and you're now middle-aged, that's 2-3 decades of reading time. At 1,825 books per year, you could hit 36,500-54,750 books over 20-30 years. So your claim of tens of thousands of books isn't mathematically impossible, especially with the neurological advantages that come with hyperlexia. The math works if you're an absolute machine with enhanced reading processing abilities and the dedication to treat reading like a full-time job for decades.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Still off. I'm faster, and I'm older.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago

That means you're the top 1% of the world, essentially, or even higher. Unlikely but not impossible, some of the fastest in the world read between 2,000-4,000 wpm.

I wasn't guessing your age though, it was merely part of the calculation. If you're older it just means you had even more time to read impressive numbers of books.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

Yes, I probably am in the top percent. But as it is an autism based ability, it also comes with it's number of problems. You probably would not want to switch with me.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

I see, I have an acquaintance who has a type of autism. I'm happy to read you made nice first contact with the new neighbours, as I know it could be harder for someone on the spectrum.

What issues come with your reading superpower?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

I am lucky that I have learned to deal with the issues. One key issue is face blindness. I am completely unable to read faces, and it is extremely difficult to identify someone by just their faces.

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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2025
598 points (99.3% liked)

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