arumumlr

…he [Richard Grossman] claims his experimental novel “Breeze Avenue” will run three million pages and comprise roughly one billion words. (…) somebody with a lot of time on her hands might even read “Breeze Avenue”. If you read 250 words a minute (a comfortable pace), eight hours a day (you need your beauty rest), 240 days a year (weekends or holidays off), you’d be done in thirty-five years. If you read faster and stretched it out, it would be doable, though not really advisable. The point is this: a billion words probably approaches the upper bound of the length of a written message decodable by one person in lifetime. (p. 82)