In my most recent post, I launched Part 1 of an analysis to answer the question: How many books did C.S. Lewis read in his lifetime?
Part 1 is a “bottom-up” estimation whereby I attempt to generate an informed conjecture of how many books Lewis read during each of five different phases of his life. This is, of course, an inexact science based upon imprecise math, and we know how much Lewis detested those subjects. My estimates may be high, or perhaps even low, but I contend they are “directionally correct”.
A few days ago, I put forth a premise that for any person to read 20,000 books over the course of his or her life constitutes a truly enormous amount of reading. According to my hypothesis, that is comparable to what a mythical “Occupational Reader” could do over an entire career.
This amount of 20,000 books was depicted on the accompanying graphic as four red hashmarks, each representing a 150-foot-long bookshelf that holds 5,000 books. By comparison with the 3,196 other bookshelves in the LOC model, this “Occupational Reader” would have read only on-eighth of one percent (0.125%) of the Library of Congress collection of 16,000,000 print books in English.
My fictional “Occupational Reader” is no “slacker,” but the task of reading everything is utterly overwhelming. It makes one wonder: Is erudition in the 21st century even possible?
According to my speculation, if someone were to read 25,000 books that would be an astounding feat. I am not saying it has never been done—but I know of no person who has. The assumption undergirding my analysis is that the reader would read at a very fast speed, but not so fast as to prevent comprehension and retention. Put another way, I will not validate some Evelyn Wood “page scanning” technique that precludes both understanding and recall.
In Part 2 of the analysis, I use a “top-down” approach to estimate how many books C.S. Lewis read. Rather than delineating discrete phases of his life, the “top-down” approach is simpler, and applies a broader set of assumptions to his entire life.
How does this “top-down” analysis work? I use an Excel spreadsheet into which I incorporate a set of variables, and then build specific formulas to calculate desired benchmarks.
To be specific, there are ten variables into which I mapped three different scenarios:
- Average number of pages in Literary books.
- Average number of words per page in Literary books.
- Reading speed measured in number of words per minute.
- Average number of hours spent reading during each reading day.
- Average number of days per year spent in reading.
- Total number of years spent doing active reading.
- Percent of books read a second (or more) time.
- Percent of books read that are considered “literary reading”.
- The degree to which the reader comprehends what the author intended to say (stated as a percentage)
- The degree to which the reader retains the information gained for recall at a later date (stated as a percentage).
These ten data points are then used by the formulas embedded in the spreadsheet to calculate two primary benchmarks:
- Total number of different books read lifetime.
- Total number of “Literary” books read, comprehended, and retained lifetime.
Data points #1 through #7 are used to calculate the first benchmark, which is the “total number of different books read lifetime.”
There is also a second benchmark, which is the “total number of ‘Literary’ books read, comprehended, and retained lifetime”. This second benchmark has not yet been introduced to our review, but it will be used for an interesting speculation toward the end of this analysis.
Using three different scenarios, I am selecting the middle one as “most reasonable”. The specific assumptions for each variable are listed on the accompanying graphic.
The only real difference in the three scenarios relate to two factors—number of words read per minute and number of days spend reading each year. All other key variables, such as the percent of books read a second (or more) time (one in seven) or the number of hours spent reading a day (4 hours) are static.
Of the two dynamic variables, reading speed is the more important. As I have indicated elsewhere, reading experts do not believe that any reading speed over 600 words per minute is feasible. Anything higher is mere “scanning” and whole-page scanning is simply not conducive to either complete comprehension or total recall (in a sports book or romance novel, perhaps, but not with philosophy and other types of Literature).
That said, I believe that C.S. Lewis was a one-in-a-million reader. In the chosen scenario I have pushed his reading speed from 600 wpm to 700 wpm. I think this is conservative and credible.
It is interesting to note that this second approach produces the same base conjecture as the first approach: C.S. Lewis read approximately 20,000 books over the course of his life. This is helpful confirmation that the estimate is directionally correct.
You may ask: But Is this reasonable?
I make this commitment to members of the C.S. Lewis Forum: I will never tell you something that turns out to be untrue that I will not correct as soon as possible. As for my estimates, I realize they are not perfect—how far off and in which direction I cannot say. But until proven otherwise they are not untruths, at least not yet.
I believe my base conjecture is directionally correct. The result of the “bottom-up” approach produced an estimate of 20,000 to 21,000 books read. The “top-down” approach also produced an estimate of 20,000 books read. The high projection was 24,000, the low came in at 16,000. This consistency suggests that 20,000 is probably a reasonable number. One that will allow us to move forward.
There is a paradox here: of the five main parameters in this analysis, this first one—the number of books read—is, in my humble opinion, the least important. It is not the crucial factor. I suspect Mortimer Adler, G.K. Chesterton, Umberto Eco, Winston Churchill, Umberto Eco and John Milton may also have read something on the order of 20,000 books during their lifetime.
What follows are the real differentiators.
Page 11 | Part 12 | Part 13
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