Quick Reads
Twenty books are marked as quick reads, typically under two hours. 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.
No sign-up required
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 tool gives you an honest estimate of how long each book will take to read, based on its word count and a typical reading speed. You can see whether a book falls into the quick, steady, immersive, or marathon category.
In this catalog, the median reading time is about 261 minutes, or roughly 4.4 hours. But individual titles vary widely, from a 40-minute read to a 905-minute marathon.
Steady and Immersive
Twenty-six books are steady (2-4 hours), and twenty-nine are immersive (4-8 hours). These offer more depth while still fitting into a day or two of reading.
Marathon Reads
Twenty-four books are marathon length, exceeding eight hours. These are substantial works that may take several days to complete.
Planning a Page-by-Page Path Through Long Histories
The Reading Tracker turns a book's total length into a manageable daily plan. It records your progress in pages, with a current page, total pages, and a daily page goal. If the catalog does not have a fixed page count, the tracker estimates one by dividing the word count by 250 words per page. You can replace that estimate with the page count from your own reading app or edition.
The tracker does not measure sections or reading minutes as progress. It works in pages only. That is a deliberate simplification: a page is a consistent unit, even when chapters vary in length. By setting a daily goal, you can see how many days a book will take, and you can adjust the goal as your schedule changes.
Start with the default estimate, then adjust
For a book like The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922 — Themes and Context, which has about 91,700 words, the tracker estimates roughly 367 pages (91,743 / 250). At the default daily goal of 20 pages, that works out to about 19 days of reading. That number gives you a concrete sense of the commitment before you start.
You do not have to accept the estimate. If your e-reader shows 400 pages, you can enter that total, and the tracker recalculates the remaining time and finish date. The same applies if you are reading a print edition with different pagination. The tracker is designed to match your actual reading experience, not the catalog's approximation.
Set a daily goal that fits your life
The default goal is 20 pages per day, but you can change it. If you have more time on weekends, you might set a higher goal for those days. The tracker uses the goal to estimate finish days, so a small change can shift the end date noticeably. For a 367-page book, reading 30 pages a day instead of 20 cuts the estimated time from about 19 days to 13.
The tracker stores your history in the browser, so you can leave and come back without losing your place. No account is required. That simplicity makes it easy to maintain a reading habit, even for books that stretch over several weeks.
Use the tracker for any book in the catalog
The tracker works with any of the 99 books, For readers who are reading a short account like Crawford's Defeat: A Tale of the Frontier in 1812 — Themes and Context (about 5,800 words) or a lengthy study like A history of the Zulu Rebellion, 1906, and of Dinuzulu's arrest, trial, and expatriation — Story, Setting & Ideas (about 208,000 words). The page estimate scales accordingly, and the daily goal gives you a steady pace.
For a book like The Assault on Mount Everest, 1922 — Themes and Context, the tracker helps you see that a 399-minute read is not an impossible task; it is just a matter of breaking it into daily page goals. The estimated remaining time is proportional to your progress, so you always know how much is left.
The Reading Tracker is a practical companion for long-form history. It does not rate the book or tell you how to read it; it simply helps you finish what you started.