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How long does it take to read Lady Sings the Blues?

Billie Holiday, William Dufty

Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday, William Dufty takes about 3 hours 43 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 3 hours 43 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1956. 203 pages, about 55,825 words.

8 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 6 hours 12 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 3 hours 43 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 20 minutes

The page count is the median across 28 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

In a memoir that is as poignant, lyrical, and dramatic as her legendary performances, Billie Holiday tells her own story. She recalls a turbulent adolescence in Harlem during the 1920s, the excitement of working in New York City's famous jazz clubs with the musicians who brought jazz to the forefront of American culture, and her own dazzling rise to the top. The darker side of the Holiday legend is here too: the men who exploited her, the racial prejudice she encountered, and her harrowing struggle with heroin addiction. "Little in the striking opening of Lady Sings the Blues is factual, ... And no one who knew her can imagine Billie Holiday, even young, scrubbing steps - a favorite part of her myth of herself. Lady Sings the Blues is a faithful rendition of that myth. ..." Phyllis Rose in The Norton Book of Women's Lives

Subjects: Jazz, Zangeressen, Correspondence, reminiscences, Musicians, Discography, Singers

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