READING TIME · HOMER · 8th century BCE
How long does it take to read The Odyssey?
At an average reading speed, about 8 hours 10 minutes. The Odyssey is 127,095 words long, in 24 books.
- WORDS
- 127,095
- BOOKS
- 24
- READING LEVEL
- About grade 11 (Flesch–Kincaid)
Reading time at different speeds
| Reader | Speed | Whole book |
|---|---|---|
| Unhurried | 200 words a minute | 10 h 35 min |
| Average adult reader | 260 words a minute | 8 h 10 min |
| Quick reader | 320 words a minute | 6 h 35 min |
To finish it at a steady pace:
- 20 minutes a day: about 25 days
- 30 minutes a day: about 17 days
- 60 minutes a day: about 9 days
How many books are in The Odyssey?
The Odyssey has 24 books. The longest is Book 24 (14,313 words, 55 min); the shortest is Book 7 (3,368 words, 13 min). The average book takes 20 min. Parlor opens Samuel Butler’s prose translation (1900), so these times are for prose, not verse.
Reading times below are at 260 words a minute.
| Book | Words | Reading time | Practice in Parlor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Book 1 | 4,142 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Book 2 | 4,233 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Book 3 | 4,729 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Book 4 | 8,117 | 31 min | Check it → |
| Book 5 | 4,700 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Book 6 | 3,450 | 13 min | Check it → |
| Book 7 | 3,368 | 13 min | Check it → |
| Book 8 | 5,621 | 22 min | Check it → |
| Book 9 | 5,856 | 23 min | Check it → |
| Book 10 | 5,746 | 22 min | Check it → |
| Book 11 | 6,085 | 23 min | Check it → |
| Book 12 | 4,640 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Book 13 | 4,219 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Book 14 | 5,399 | 21 min | Check it → |
| Book 15 | 5,435 | 21 min | Check it → |
| Book 16 | 4,556 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Book 17 | 5,875 | 23 min | Check it → |
| Book 18 | 4,174 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Book 19 | 6,037 | 23 min | Check it → |
| Book 20 | 3,851 | 15 min | Check it → |
| Book 21 | 4,266 | 16 min | Check it → |
| Book 22 | 4,573 | 18 min | Check it → |
| Book 23 | 3,710 | 14 min | Check it → |
| Book 24 | 14,313 | 55 min | Check it → |
READING IT FOR CLASS?
Knowing how long it takes is one thing. Understanding it is another.
Parlor Study is a reading comprehension companion. Read The Odyssey one book at a time, then make sure you understood it.
- Read a book. The full Project Gutenberg text, with highlights, notes and read-aloud.
- Explain it in your own words. Challenge me asks about the main idea, what the text suggests without saying, and the turn the book hinges on, then checks your answer against the text.
- Talk it through, then come back. Discuss stays within the books you have reached, so it won’t give away what comes next, and Revisit brings your ideas back later.
Parlor Study is a web preview for ages 13 and up, available by invitation. Request an invitation. AI feedback can make mistakes; check it against the text.
How these numbers were worked out
Words are counted in The Odyssey, Project Gutenberg eBook #1727, the edition Parlor opens, divided into books exactly as Parlor shows them. Project Gutenberg’s licence and notes are left out. Other editions may differ slightly.
Reading speeds follow Marc Brysbaert’s review of 190 studies, which found that adults read English silently at about 260 words a minute for fiction and 238 for non-fiction (Journal of Memory and Language, 2019). Older and more difficult books often take longer than their word count suggests.
The reading level is the Flesch–Kincaid grade, worked out from average sentence length (28.9 words) and word length. It measures how long the sentences and words are, not how hard the ideas are.
Similar length
- Lord Jim 8 h 15 min
- The House of Mirth 8 h 20 min
- Babbitt 7 h 55 min
- Pride and Prejudice 7 h 50 min
Also by Homer
- The Iliad 9 h 50 min