The key to enjoying novels is to read them in long enough sittings to get into the flow state. If you only read a couple pages at a time between doomscrolling sessions, it will feel like a chore. Anything would.

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Tanoc 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There was a rule a fourth grade teacher of mine had that she used in her English class to try and get some of the less literate kids up to par. That rule was embodied by the name she gave it, "Thirty minutes thirty pages." She gave them thirty minutes to read thirty pages of a book. A minute a page. Considering most of them were choosing things like Goosebumps that were only a hundred and twenty pages or so it was an easy enough ask. But because she set it as a challenge so many of them went blasting beyond that. Many would finish half the book during that thirty minute reading period. The interesting thing I didn't pick up on until years later as an adult was that it was also slow enough that they could actually understand and remember what they were reading rather than just blasting through it. It left the slower readers with enough time and didn't make them feel like they were falling behind while encouraging them to learn how to read faster.

Many modern adult book series are six hundred pages or more for a single installment with about four hundred words a page versus the maybe hundred and fifty of a children's book like Goosebumps. Since it's three to four times the text that makes thirty pages thirty minutes actually viable as a self challenge even as an adult.

	▲	layman51 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I consider myself a slow reader so I am interested in this pacing rule. Do you remember how the pacing was enforced? Were there like minute sandtimers or was it just kind of like a 30 minute timer and you either met the pace or didn't?

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jwrallie 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reading in 5 min bursts in-between longer sessions can remain a valid strategy, but you have to carry the book with you everywhere for it to work out.

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thewhitetulip 23 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

> The key to enjoying novels is to read them in long enough sittings to get into the flow state

As a voracious reader, I both agree and disagree with this.

There are some books that simply take too long to come to the point. I'm reading an ARC of a dark academia that's highly rated. I'm 60% in and I haven't yet gotten interested in it. I read entire "Billy Summers" in 2 days by halting the previous book's read. So yeah, the onus is also on the author to make the book interesting

Full disclosure: I am not a tiktok or reel addict. I've read 65 books last year, currently on my 45th book of 2026. I love long books.