How long does it take to read City of Thieves?
City of Thieves by David Benioff takes about 5 hours 27 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 27 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2008. 297 pages, about 81,675 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 5 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 27 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 24 minutes |
The page count is the median across 13 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival — and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime. During the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible. By turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men.
Subjects: War Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Grandparent and child, History, Reminiscing in old age