How long does it take to read Post-Birthday World?
Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver takes about 10 hours 28 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 28 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2003. 571 pages, about 157,025 words.
21 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 17 hours 27 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 28 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 33 minutes |
The page count is the median across 23 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the implications, large and small, of whom we choose to love. Using a playful parallel-universe structure, The Post-Birthday World follows one woman's future as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men. Children's book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart, loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid. Until the night Irina unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player Ramsey Acton. The decision to give in to temptation will have consequences for her career, her relationships with family and friends, and perhaps most importantly the texture of her daily life. Hinging on a single kiss, this enchanting work of fiction depicts Irina's alternating futures with two men temperamentally worlds apart yet equally honorable. With which true love Irina is better off is neither obvious nor easy to determine, but Shriver's exploration of the two destinies is memorable and gripping. Poignant and deeply honest, written with the subtlety and wit that are the hallmarks of Shriver's work, The Post-Birthday World appeals to the what-if in us all.
Subjects: Fiction, Americans, Mate selection, Snooker players, Married people, Women illustrators
