How long does it take to read Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle?
Victor Appleton
Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle by Victor Appleton takes about 3 hours 18 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 18 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1910. 180 pages, about 49,500 words. Written for children.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 30 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 18 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 4 minutes |
The page count is the median across 30 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The book opens with Tom on an errand for his father. He is on a bicycle, and is nearly run down by one Andy Foger, a red-haired squinty-eyed bully, who is trying to get his new automobile to go as fast as possible. Andy ends up in a ditch, and blames Tom. (This may be the first documented case of "road-rage.") Later on that same trip, Tom encounters one Wakefield Damon, who crashes his new motor-cycle against a tree near Tom's house and is injured. Tom buys the wreck and repairs it, thus leading to his Adventures On the Road. Tom was been given charge by his father of delivering important patent documents and a proof-of-concept model to an attorney in distant Albany, NY. Those documents, along with the model, a new turbine engine developed by Tom's father Barton, are the central anchor around which the rest of the story revolves. Barton's turbine design and model are stolen by a gang, posing as tramps. The gang are hired by frustrated investors, seeking to "get ahead" of Barton and capitalize on the new design. The gang attacks Tom and drugs him during his road trip to Albany. Tom escapes, and after some serious detective work, finds the bad-guys' hideout. With the help of Mr. Damon and several other men, Tom recovers the stolen items. The bad guys slip away in the confusion, to return in future episodes.
Subjects: Fiction, Motorcycles, Adventure and adventurers, Children's fiction, Science fiction, Adventure and adventurers, fiction
