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How long does it take to read The Brief History of the Dead?

Kevin Brockmeier

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier takes about 4 hours 37 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 37 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2006. 252 pages, about 69,300 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 42 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 37 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 53 minutes

The page count is the median across 4 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

"Remember me when I'm gone" just took on a whole new meaning. The City is inhabited by the recently departed, who reside there only as long as they remain in the memories of the living. Among the current residents of this afterlife are Luka Sims, who prints the only newspaper in the City, with news from the other side; Coleman Kinzler, a vagrant who speaks the cautionary words of God; and Marion and Phillip Byrd, who find themselves falling in love again after decades of marriage. On Earth, Laura Byrd is trapped by extreme weather in an Antarctic research station. She's alone and unable to contact the outside world: her radio is down and the power is failing. She's running out of supplies as quickly as she's running out of time. Kevin Brockmeier interweaves these two stories in a spellbinding tale of human connections across boundaries of all kinds. The Brief History of the Dead is the work of a remarkably gifted writer. This description comes from the publisher.

Subjects: Death--Fiction., Epidemics--Fiction., Future life--Fiction., Wilderness survival--Fiction., Antarctica--Fiction., Epidemics

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