There is an employee at the Mercury who reads incredibly fast. One day he asked me about a 350+ page book, and I told him that I liked it a lot. The next day, I brought it in as a loaner, but he told me that not only did he go buy it after work the night before, but he had already finished it. Ever since, when people ask me if I’m a fast reader, I have to pause and admit that I used to think so, but maybe I’m just slightly faster than average. As it turns out, there’s a whole strata of people out there who knock out two or three novels a day without breaking a sweat. There’s a great article here about super speed readers:

That figure of two minutes a page is the key. The memory and reading guru Tony Buzan, who wrote the Speed Reading Book for the BBC, believes people can do much better than that.

“Most people are not good readers at all. After university the average graduate reads one book a year. Even good readers are reading at half the speed they could be.

“A speed of a thousand words a minute is comfortably achievable on an appropriate text.”

Be sure to check out the article’s comments, because it’s a ton of BBC readers all trying to top each other with who can read the fastest. [“OK, probably quite easy. I have done Lord of the Rings, including Appendices, in 5 Days whilst on Holiday. The Last Harry Potter in 6 hours. The Da Vinci Code in one sitting over night!”]

Meanwhile, the American Institute of Graphic Design named their 100 favorite book covers of 2007, which is total porn for booklovers. It’s a predictably beautiful collection with sumptuous covers: I’m just really surprised that Chip Kidd and Thomas Allen’s James Ellroy covers didn’t make it, and have to wonder about #57? Seriously?