How long does it take to read Zoo Station?
Kai Hermann, Horst Rieck
Zoo Station by Kai Hermann, Horst Rieck takes about 5 hours 27 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 27 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1978. 297 pages, about 81,675 words.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 5 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 27 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 24 minutes |
The page count is the median across 30 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Two journalists from the news magazine Stern, Kai Herrmann and Horst Rieck, met Christiane in 1978 in Berlin when she was a witness in a trial against a man who paid underaged girls with heroin in return for sex. The journalists wanted to disclose the drug problem among teenagers in Berlin, which was severe but also surrounded by strong taboos. They arranged a two-hour interview with Christiane. The two hours ended up being two months, where Christiane provided an in-depth description of a life with drugs and prostitution that she and other teenagers in West Berlin experienced in the 1970s. The journalists subsequently ran a series of articles about her addiction in Stern, based on tape recorded interviews with Christiane. The interviews were extensive, and the Stern publishing house eventually decided to publish the successful book Christiane F. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo in 1979. The book chronicles her life from 1975 to 1978, when she was aged 12–15. The narrative of the book is in the first person, from Christiane's viewpoint, but was written by the journalists functioning as ghostwriters.[1] Others, such as Christiane's mother, and various people who witnessed the escalating drug situation in Berlin at the time, also contributed to the book. It depicts several of Christiane's friends along with other drug addicts, as well as scenes from typical locations of the drug scene in Berlin.
Subjects: Youth, Case studies, Prostitution, Drug use, Heroin habit, Adolescent girls
