How long does it take to read Infinite Jest?

Infinite Jest is 577,608 words, about 40 hours of reading, and it is one of the few books here whose word count comes from an actual computational count of the text rather than an estimate. The reading time understates the difficulty badly: roughly 100 pages are endnotes, many with their own footnotes, so a faithful reading involves constant physical page-turning between two parts of the book. The 238 words-per-minute figure assumes non-technical prose read linearly, and this is neither. The Sean Pratt audiobook runs about 64 hours and omits the endnotes entirely, which is a different book.

The numbers

Total

40 hours 27 minutes

In hours

40.5 hours

Non-stop

1.7 days without sleeping

Covers

577,608 words including endnotes

At a realistic pace

an hour a night

That works out as

about 41 days

As an audiobook

2 days 16 hours

What this assumes

577,608 words at 238 words per minute. This is the standard rate for straightforward prose and almost certainly overstates real reading speed for this book.

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