Interactive reading tools

Do more with this book catalog

This catalog gathers 92 public-domain works, organized into four broad categories: historical psychological social fiction, exploration survival adventure tales, fantasy juvenile worlds, and science fiction utopias. Each entry includes practical details such as word count, estimated reading time, and text structure, so you can choose a book that fits your available time and interests.

Beyond the books themselves, these pages offer tools to help you navigate the collection. You can browse by category and subject, compare similar titles, or estimate how long a particular work will take to read. The goal is to make it easier to find a rewarding read from the public domain.

92 books in this catalog
4 catalog categories
92 books with reading-time data
Book Finder What should I read next? Match books to your preferences using filters for category, subject, length, and reading pace. Find a book → Compare Books Put 2 or 3 books side by side Examine objective details of multiple titles to see how they differ in scope and structure. Compare books → Reading Tracker Track your reading progress Estimate how long a book will take to read, based on word count and typical reading speeds. Track reading →
Made for this collection

Ways the catalog data becomes useful

Find a Book

Filter by category, subject, length, or reading time to match your mood and schedule. With 92 titles and 4 categories, there's likely something for you.

Compare Titles

See side-by-side details on word count, reading time, and structure for books in the same category or with related subjects.

Estimate Reading Time

Use the reading time estimates to plan your next reading session. Know how long a book might take before you start.

Working with the Library Tools

Choosing and Tracking: The Three Tools at a Glance

The Book Finder, Compare Books, and Reading Tracker serve different parts of the reading process. The Finder narrows a large catalog, Compare looks closely at a few candidates, and the Tracker keeps a current book on a sustainable schedule. Used together, they form a practical workflow: search, compare, then commit.

Start with the Finder

The Finder is the entry point. With 92 books spread across four categories, you can filter by genre, length, reading time, chapter rhythm, sentence flow, or subject. For instance, if you want a mid-length Victorian social novel, you might set the category to Historical Psychological Social Fiction and choose a medium word count. The Finder will return a focused list, and you can scan the results for titles that match your mood.

A concrete example: The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond — Reading Notes sits at roughly 54,000 words, which is close to the catalog median. It appears in the Historical Psychological Social Fiction category, so filtering by that category and a medium length brings it up. The Finder lets you see such matches without scrolling through all 92 entries.

Compare a Shortlist

Once you have two or three candidates, Compare Books shows their measurable traits side by side: word count, estimated reading time, chapter count, sentence length, and subjects. This is where you can weigh a longer commitment against a shorter one, or a dense sentence style against a more direct one. The tool does not judge quality; it simply lays out the facts.

For example, you might compare a 30,000-word mystery with a 100,000-word adventure. The reading time difference is obvious, but the chapter count can also matter: a book with many short chapters may feel easier to pick up for brief sessions than one with long, continuous sections. Compare helps you see these structural differences before you start.

Plan Progress with the Tracker

After you choose a book, the Reading Tracker turns it into a page-based plan. You set a daily page goal, and the tool estimates how many days remain based on the total page count. Since the catalog provides word counts but not always page counts, the tracker estimates pages using 250 words per page, which you can adjust to match your edition.

The tracker stores your progress in the browser, so you can update it each day without an account. It is a simple way to keep a long book moving, especially if you have chosen an immersive read that will take several weeks. The three tools together cover the full arc: find, compare, and read steadily.