How long does it take to read The Magic Barrel?
The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud takes about 3 hours 55 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 55 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1953. 214 pages, about 58,850 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 32 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 55 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 27 minutes |
The page count is the median across 66 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This is Bernard Malamud's first book of short stories. The stories are set in New York and in Italy (where Malamud's alter ego, the struggling New York Jewish Painter Arthur Fidelman, roams amid the ruins of old Europe in search of his artistic patrimony) they tell of egg candlers and shoemakers, matchmakers, and rabbis, in a voice that blends vigorous urban realism, Yiddish idiom, and a dash of artistic magic.
Subjects: Americans, Fiction, Jews, National Book Award Winner, Painters, Social life and customs
