How long does it take to read The Naked and the Dead?
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer takes about 13 hours 13 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 13 hours 13 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1948. 721 pages, about 198,275 words.
27 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 22 hours 2 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 13 hours 13 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 8 hours 16 minutes |
The page count is the median across 36 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Based on Mailer’s own experience of military service in the Philippines during World War Two, The Naked and the Dead is a graphically truthful and shattering portrayal of ordinary men in battle. First published in 1949, as America was still basking in the glories of the Allied victory, it altered forever the popular perception of warfare. Focusing on the experiences of a fourteen-man platoon stationed on a Japanese-held island in the South Pacific during World War II, and written in a journalistic style, it tells the moving story of the soldiers' struggle to retain a sense of dignity amidst the horror of warfare, and to find a source of meaning in their lives amidst the sounds and fury of battle.
Subjects: Fiction, Men and war, Soldiers, Campaigns, Marines, Military campaigns
