How long does it take to read Buddenbrooks?
Verfall einer Familie
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann takes about 12 hours 16 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 12 hours 16 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1909. 669 pages, about 183,975 words.
25 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 20 hours 27 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 12 hours 16 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 7 hours 40 minutes |
The page count is the median across 87 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This epic, sub-titled ‘The Decline of a Family’, was Mann’s first novel, published in 1901. It traces the gradual downfall of a wealthy family over four generations in the city of Lubeck. The novel is widely regarded as a classic portrait of bourgeois society and family life in 19th century Germany.
Subjects: Fiction, Families, Family, Civilization, German fiction, German
