Quick Reads
Twelve titles are estimated to take under an hour and a half. These are ideal for a short sitting or an introduction to a topic.
Reading Tracker
Choose a book, record where you are, and set a daily goal. Your progress is stored in localStorage in this browser; it is not uploaded to a user account.
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Stored in your browser
Estimated time remaining
Choose a book
If the EPUB has no fixed print pagination, the tool starts with an estimated page count and lets you replace it with the page total shown by your own reader.
Reading progress
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Remaining
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Estimated time left
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At your daily goal
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Stored locally
Reading history
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How the progress estimate works
The Reading Time tool estimates how long it will take to read each book in the archive. The estimate is based on word count and a median reading speed of 230 words per minute.
The archive's titles have a median word count of 88,255, which corresponds to about 384 minutes of reading. However, individual books range from 16,296 words (71 minutes) to over 1.6 million words (about 118 hours).
Steady Reads
Thirteen titles fall in the steady range, roughly two to three hours. Good for an evening or a long commute.
Immersive and Marathon
Thirty-eight titles are immersive (over three hours), and 34 are marathon-length (many hours or days). These offer deep dives into history.
Planning a Sustainable Pace with the Reading Tracker
The Reading Tracker is built around a simple idea: progress is measured in pages, not minutes or chapters. You set a current page, a total page count, and a daily page goal. The tracker then estimates how many days the book will take, based on the remaining pages and your daily target. It does not record reading time or sections; it is a page-based planning tool.
Setting Up a Title
When a catalog page lacks a fixed page count, the tracker estimates the total pages by dividing the word count by 250. For Memorials of old Durham — Background and Themes (id 299), that gives about 357 pages (89,349 words ÷ 250). You can replace that estimate with the page count from your own edition, which is useful if you are using a print copy or a different ebook format.
The default daily goal is 20 pages. At that pace, Memorials of old Durham would take roughly 18 days (357 ÷ 20, rounded up). If you prefer a lighter commitment, you might set a goal of 10 pages, which would double the time to about 36 days. The tracker lets you adjust the goal at any point, so you can respond to your actual reading habits.
Using the Estimates
The tracker also estimates remaining time in minutes, proportional to the pages left. For Memorials of old Durham, the catalog lists 389 estimated minutes. If you have read 100 of 357 pages, you have about 72% remaining, so the tracker would show roughly 280 minutes left. This can help you decide whether to increase your daily goal if you want to finish sooner.
The finish date is simply ceil(remaining_pages / daily_goal). With 257 pages remaining and a 20-page goal, that is 13 days. If you raise the goal to 30 pages, it becomes 9 days. The math is transparent, so you can experiment with different goals to find a pace that feels sustainable.
Progress and Persistence
The tracker stores your progress in your browser's localStorage, so you can close the page and return later without an account. It is a low-friction way to keep a long book moving. For a title like Memorials of old Durham, which is near the catalog median in length, a steady 20 pages a day is a realistic plan. For longer works, you might need to adjust your goal or accept a longer timeline.
Remember that the tracker is a planning aid, not a judge. If you miss a day, you can simply update your current page and continue. The goal is to make progress, not to hit a perfect schedule. Use the tracker to find a rhythm that works for you, and let the page count be your guide.