Quick Reads
Books under 20,000 words, like 'The Abenaki Indians' (46 minutes) or 'Horrors of Negro Slavery' (63 minutes). 30 books fall into this category.
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 estimates how long it will take to finish a book based on its word count. The estimate uses a median reading speed of about 230 words per minute, which is a common benchmark. Your actual time may vary.
The catalog provides reading times for each book, categorized as quick (under 1 hour), steady (1-3 hours), immersive (3-6 hours), or marathon (over 6 hours). Use these to plan your reading sessions.
Steady Reads
Books between 20,000 and 50,000 words. The median reading time is 224 minutes, so many fall here. 20 books are steady.
Immersive Reads
Books between 50,000 and 100,000 words, such as 'Broke, The Man Without the Dime' (403 minutes) or 'Socialism' (377 minutes). 25 books are immersive.
Planning a Page-Based Reading Pace
The Reading Tracker treats a book as a sequence of pages, not chapters or minutes. That distinction matters for a collection like this one, where a single title can range from a short pamphlet to a dense nineteenth-century study. By setting a daily page goal and recording your current page, you can see how a book like "Facts for the People of the Free States — Background and Themes" fits into a realistic schedule without worrying about the exact time each page takes.
How the Tracker Builds a Schedule
When you open the tracker for a title, it estimates a total page count by dividing the word count by 250 words per page. For "Facts for the People of the Free States — Background and Themes", that means roughly 40 pages. You can keep that estimate or replace it with the page total from your own reading app or edition, which is useful when the catalog's estimate does not match your copy.
Progress is always measured in pages. You enter the page you are currently on, and the tracker calculates how many pages remain. It then applies your daily goal to estimate the number of days left. The default goal is 20 pages per day, but you can adjust it to fit your actual reading habits. Because the estimate is proportional, a 40-page book at 20 pages a day would take about two days, while a 400-page book at the same pace would take about three weeks.
Using the Daily Goal and Remaining Time
The daily page goal is the lever that makes the tracker practical. If you set it to 10 pages, a 40-page book takes four days; at 30 pages, it takes two. The estimated remaining time is derived from the catalog's estimated reading minutes, scaled by the fraction of pages left. For a 43-minute book like "Facts for the People of the Free States — Background and Themes", the remaining time will be small, but the tracker still gives you a concrete number to plan around.
The finish-day estimate is simply the remaining pages divided by your daily goal, rounded up. That figure changes as you update your current page, so it stays responsive to your actual progress. If you fall behind one day, the estimate adjusts; if you read ahead, it shortens. This makes the tracker a quiet record of your own pace rather than a fixed promise.
Why Pages, Not Minutes or Chapters
The tracker deliberately avoids recording sections or minutes as progress. Sections can vary wildly in length; a book with 6 text sections might have some that are a few pages and others that are a dozen. Minutes depend on reading speed and attention. Pages are the one unit that is consistent across editions, provided you use the same total page count.
For a title like "Facts for the People of the Free States — Background and Themes", which is short and has a clear subject, a page-based approach helps you see the whole commitment at a glance. You are not trying to finish a chapter in one sitting; you are simply moving through the book at a pace you set. The tracker stores your history in the browser, so you can close the page and return later without an account. That simplicity suits a library where many books are reference-like or meant to be read in short stretches.