CS Lewis was renowned as a fast reader - and one with outstanding recall and comprehension of what he wrote. Kevin McCall estimates how quickly Lewis could read (about 550 words per minute/ 70 pages an hour); and puts this into a context of research on reading speeds.
My own natural reading speed has always been much slower than this - probably about 100 pages per day; so, even as a teenager the Lord of the Rings took me about a fortnight to complete (given that I had to read, and do, other things as well as read!).
Any faster felt forced and was less enjoyable; it would be a torment to read at the necessary rate for a course of study in English Literature - a novel every day or two; quite apart from the fact I would have-to to read things I didn't want to read.
Of course I was adept at 'skimming' of online text when I was the editor of Medical Hypotheses; since I had to 'read' and select everything for a large monthly journal. Let me see... at peak there was probably about 240 pages/ 200,000 published words per month selected from 600,000 words submitted - which makes very roughly 20,000 words per day to read/ skim - evaluate - select? But this was a part-time job (I was 80% full time academic); so...
Well the skim-reading must have been very fast, and needed to be very fast. But Not too fast for me, judging by the journal's performance indicators. The fact is that I had a natural aptitude for that specific job! - and it shows what is possible (even for a slow reader, like me) when vocation and avocation are aligned.
