About 72 minutes
The ghosts of their ancestors — Background and Themes
Young Readers Enchanted Adventures
16,447 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #36991
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Start with a reading choice
Three of the shortest recorded reading commitments in this catalog. Times are estimates, not quality ratings.
About 82 minutes
The New Paul and Virginia; Or, Positivism on an Island — Background and Themes
Technology Airships Imagined Futures
18,824 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #37651About 84 minutes
The Croxley Master: A Great Tale Of The Prize Ring — Inside the Classic
Technology Airships Imagined Futures
19,146 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #38443Search the excerpts stored with this catalog
93 of 93 catalog books have a stored excerpt with a Gutenberg source record. Search covers these excerpts only, up to 6,000 characters per book. A missing match does not mean the phrase is absent from the full work.
Read a catalog excerpt example: Ormond; Or, The Secret Witness. Volume 2 (of 3) — Edition Insights
On leaving Mr. Ormond's house, Constantia was met by that gentleman. He saw her as she came out, and was charmed with the simplicity of her appearance. On entering, he interrogated the servant as to the business that brought her thither. "So," said he, as he entered the drawing-room, where Craig was seated, "you have had a visitant. She came, it seems, on a pressing occasion, and would be put off with nothing but a letter." Craig had not expected this address, but it only precipitated the exec…
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Compare two books and their available excerpts
| Book | Recorded words | Estimated minutes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The ghosts of their ancestors — Background and Themes | 16,447 | 72 | Gutenberg #36991 |
| The New Paul and Virginia; Or, Positivism on an Island — Background and Themes | 18,824 | 82 | Gutenberg #37651 |
| The Croxley Master: A Great Tale Of The Prize Ring — Inside the Classic | 19,146 | 84 | Gutenberg #38443 |
How these choices and excerpts are prepared
Choices use stored catalog measurements. Estimates vary with reading speed. A shared category is a catalog label, not a claim that two books have the same argument or literary quality.
Search reads excerpt text stored with this catalog and links to its associated Gutenberg record. The connection is stored in the site database; this tool does not recheck that every excerpt is word-for-word identical to that external record. Excerpt search does not cover every chapter and does not verify historical publication dates.
Catalog snapshot checked: 2026-09-26. Coverage: 93 public books, 93 available source excerpts.
Do more with this book catalog
This collection brings together 93 public-domain works, organized into four thematic areas. Whether you are interested in historical narratives, tales of adventure, stories for younger readers, or speculative visions of technology and airships, these tools help you find a book that fits your mood and available time.
Each tool draws on the catalog's own data—word counts, reading times, subjects, and categories—so you can make informed choices before you begin. The collection spans a range of lengths, from short pieces to epic sagas, and includes both well-known and lesser-known titles.
93
books in this catalog
4
catalog categories
93
books with reading-time data
Made for this collection
Ways the catalog data becomes useful
Finder
Narrow down the catalog by category, length, reading time, or subject. The finder matches your preferences to available books, helping you discover a title that suits your interests and schedule.
Compare
Place two books side by side to see their word counts, reading times, and subject headings. This tool makes it easy to weigh options before committing to a read.
Reading Guide
For each book, find an honest estimate of reading time based on median reading speed, along with details on structure and sentence complexity. Use this to plan your reading sessions.
Choosing a Path Through the Collection
The TEYQU library holds 93 public-domain works, and the catalog tools exist to help you find a book that fits your interests and available time. They do not rate literary quality; they make the collection's variety visible.
Because the categories and length labels overlap in useful ways, the tools work best when used together. A quick look at the Finder can suggest a title, the Compare view can reveal what a commitment looks like, and the Reading Tracker can turn that commitment into a manageable plan.
Start with the Finder
The Book Finder narrows the collection by category, length, reading time, chapter rhythm, sentence flow, and subjects. With 37 works in Relationships Society Historical Narratives and 19 each in the other three categories, the Finder prevents the catalog from feeling like an undifferentiated shelf.
For instance, Comrade Yetta — Key Ideas to Explore sits in the largest category and runs to about 128,000 words. If you know you want a social-problem novel but have limited time, the Finder lets you set a shorter length and still see titles like The Lucky Piece, a 54,000-word love story set in the Adirondacks.
Confirm with Compare
Once the Finder surfaces two or three possibilities, the Compare tool shows side-by-side metrics: word count, estimated reading time, text sections, sentence flow, chapter rhythm, and subjects. The numbers are descriptive, not judgmental.
Comparing a 97,000-word novel with 9 text sections against a 77,000-word novel with 9 sections might reveal similar pacing, even though the word counts differ. That kind of detail helps you decide if a book feels like a weekend read or a longer companion.
Plan with the Tracker
The Reading Tracker records your progress in pages, not minutes or chapters. It uses a default of 250 words per page and a daily goal of 20 pages, but you can adjust both to match your own rhythm.
If a book has no fixed page count, the tracker estimates one from the word count. You can replace that estimate with the page total from your own edition. The estimated finish date is simply the remaining pages divided by your daily goal, so a 300-page book at 20 pages a day takes about 15 days.