How long does it take to read Secondhand Time?
Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich takes about 10 hours 2 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 10 hours 2 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 2013. 547 pages, about 150,425 words.
21 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 16 hours 43 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 10 hours 2 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 16 minutes |
The page count is the median across 12 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"From the 2015 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich, comes the first English translation of her latest work, an oral history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Russia. Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive documentary style, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals"-- "Bringing together dozens of voices in her distinctive style of oral history, Secondhand Time is a monument to the collapse of the USSR, charting the decline of Soviet culture and speculating on what will rise from the ashes of Communism. As in all her books, Alexievich gives voice to women and men whose stories are lost in the official narratives of nation-states, creating a powerful alternative history from the personal and private stories of individuals. When the Swedish Academy awarded Svetlana Alexievich the Nobel Prize in Literature, they praised her 'polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time,' and cited her for inventing 'a new kind of literary genre.' Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, added that her work comprises 'a history of emotions--a history of the soul'"--
Subjects: Social conditions, Post-communism, Biography, Oral history, Post-communism, russia (federation), Russia (federation), biography
