How long does it take to read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius?
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Dion Graham takes about 8 hours 1 minute to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 1 minute
A week or two of reading
First published 2000. 437 pages, about 120,175 words.
17 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 21 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 1 minute |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours |
The page count is the median across 24 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Dave Eggers's memoir recounts how, in his early twenties, he becomes the guardian of his much younger brother Toph after cancer kills both their parents within a short span. The siblings leave Illinois for California, where Eggers raises the boy while living in a series of rented apartments, paid for by an inheritance and Social Security. He wavers between confidence and worry about his unconventional parenting, and he resents the youth he feels he has lost. Meanwhile, he starts an independent magazine with friends and pursues a personal life that the book renders as somewhat surreal.
This summary was written by AI and checked by a second AI model. How these are chosen.
Subjects: Death, Brothers, Family, Bildungsromans, American Authors, Parents
