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But all my friends on Goodreads are claiming to finish a book a week Are... Are they LYING?? No one lies on the internet. EDIT: Wow I guess I hit a, nerve. So

But all my friends on Goodreads are claiming to finish a book a week Are... Are they LYING?? No one lies on the internet. EDIT: Wow I guess I hit a, nerve. Sorry folks. I use Goodreads and finish about a book a month. So I don't think a book a week is unreasonable/impossible. I just meant to allude to the fact that the platform has gotten a lot of attention for review bombing and profile manipulation. Anyways, here is some data (not MAU, to be fair) about US stats: https://www.goodreads.com/book/most_read?category=all&country=US&duration=y https://www.goodreads.com/book/most_read?category=all&countr...

mckn1ght 3y ago
How many friends do you have?
rpncreator 3y ago
Audiobooks, my friend.
patrickmay 3y ago
I finish about a book a week, reading a couple of hours a night before sleep. It's not unreasonable.
- pavlov 3y ago
  I’m all for reading, but a couple of hours every night is a very big time investment. People with children are often lucky to have 30 minutes for themselves.
bowsamic 3y ago
My mum is on that rate when she's not super busy, so I don't think that's a lie. Some people read like machines
abtinf 3y ago
There was span of a couple years when I had to commute ~3 hours per day. I easily completed 1-2 audiobooks per week. But more to your point, what percentage of the population do you think is active on goodreads? I can't find any MAU numbers for them, just total membership numbers. Regardless, it is a self-selecting audience. Much like if you go to a theater to see the latest garbage marvel movie, the people in that theater are probably very likely to have seen other marvel movies in the theater recently too.
NineStarPoint 3y ago
Or, perhaps, the sort of person who spends time on a website centered around reading is unsurprisingly in the top percentiles of reading amount.
Detrytus 3y ago
Self-selection: Goodreads main function is to recommend a next book to read to people who like reading. No wonder Goodreads users read more than an average American.
egypturnash 3y ago
I know this is humor but: a. the original poll this article is based on says that 1% of the US population reads 50+ books a week; 1% of 3.3*10^8 people is still a lot of people. b. some books are much easier to read than others, are your friends just kicking back once a week with a competently-written potboiler in a genre they've been reading half their life, or are they reading one abstruse 800-page tome after another? Or are they reading kid's books to a child in their life? Lying's certainly a possibility too, but so's marking something as "read" when you actually abandoned it somewhere before the end - and that's a spectrum too; when I read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" I abandoned it about ten pages before the end but I'd still say I "read" it. If I'd only gotten ten pages in I wouldn't say that.
fullspectrumdev 3y ago
I get through an average novel in 1-2 days, either in dead tree or ebook format on my phone.

mckn1ght 3y ago

How many friends do you have?

rpncreator 3y ago

Audiobooks, my friend.

patrickmay 3y ago

I finish about a book a week, reading a couple of hours a night before sleep. It's not unreasonable.

pavlov 3y ago
I’m all for reading, but a couple of hours every night is a very big time investment. People with children are often lucky to have 30 minutes for themselves.

bowsamic 3y ago

My mum is on that rate when she's not super busy, so I don't think that's a lie. Some people read like machines

abtinf 3y ago

There was span of a couple years when I had to commute ~3 hours per day. I easily completed 1-2 audiobooks per week. But more to your point, what percentage of the population do you think is active on goodreads? I can't find any MAU numbers for them, just total membership numbers. Regardless, it is a self-selecting audience. Much like if you go to a theater to see the latest garbage marvel movie, the people in that theater are probably very likely to have seen other marvel movies in the theater recently too.

NineStarPoint 3y ago

Or, perhaps, the sort of person who spends time on a website centered around reading is unsurprisingly in the top percentiles of reading amount.

Detrytus 3y ago

Self-selection: Goodreads main function is to recommend a next book to read to people who like reading. No wonder Goodreads users read more than an average American.

egypturnash 3y ago

I know this is humor but: a. the original poll this article is based on says that 1% of the US population reads 50+ books a week; 1% of 3.3*10^8 people is still a lot of people. b. some books are much easier to read than others, are your friends just kicking back once a week with a competently-written potboiler in a genre they've been reading half their life, or are they reading one abstruse 800-page tome after another? Or are they reading kid's books to a child in their life? Lying's certainly a possibility too, but so's marking something as "read" when you actually abandoned it somewhere before the end - and that's a spectrum too; when I read Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon" I abandoned it about ten pages before the end but I'd still say I "read" it. If I'd only gotten ten pages in I wouldn't say that.

fullspectrumdev 3y ago

I get through an average novel in 1-2 days, either in dead tree or ebook format on my phone.