How long does it take to read The Broom of the System?
David Foster Wallace, Duke Riley
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace, Duke Riley takes about 8 hours 34 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 34 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1987. 467 pages, about 128,425 words.
18 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 14 hours 16 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 34 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 21 minutes |
The page count is the median across 10 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Lenore Beadsman, a 24-year-old telephone switchboard operator who gets caught in the middle of a Cleveland-based character drama. In Wallace's typically offbeat style, Lenore navigates three separate crises: her great-grandmother's escape from a nursing home, a neurotic boyfriend, and a suddenly vocal pet cockatiel. The controlling idea surrounding all of these crises is the use of words and symbols to define a person.
Subjects: Fiction, Missing persons, Popular culture, Grandmothers, Young women, Fiction, humorous
