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How long does it take to read Dispatches?

Michael Herr

Dispatches by Michael Herr takes about 4 hours 46 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 46 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1977. 260 pages, about 71,500 words.

10 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 7 hours 57 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 46 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 59 minutes

The page count is the median across 23 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Written on the front lines in Vietnam, Dispatches became an immediate classic of war reportage when it was published in 1977. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.

Subjects: American Personal narratives, Vietnam War, Vietnamese Conflict, Fiction, war & military, Fiction, men's adventure, Vietnam, fiction

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