About 19 minutes
Mabini's Decalogue for Filipinos — Themes and Context
Adventure Picaresque Fiction
4,253 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #14660
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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 25 minutes
The Storm. An Essay. — Text and Context
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
5,548 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #41063About 29 minutes
Address by Honorable William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce at Conference of Regional Chairmen of the Highways Transport Committee Council of National Defense — Reading Notes
Science Fiction Utopias
6,631 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #19758Search the excerpts stored with this catalog
91 of 91 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: The Mind in the Making: The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform — Background and Themes
Galileo had committed an offense of a grave character by discussing in the mother tongue the problems of physics. In his old age he was imprisoned and sentenced to repeat the seven penitential psalms for differing from Aristotle and Moses and the teachings of the theologians. On hearing Galileo's fate. Descartes burned a book he had written, _On The World_, lest he, too, get into trouble. From that time down to the days of Huxley and John Fiske the struggle has continued, and still continues--t…
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Compare two books and their available excerpts
| Book | Recorded words | Estimated minutes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mabini's Decalogue for Filipinos — Themes and Context | 4,253 | 19 | Gutenberg #14660 |
| The Storm. An Essay. — Text and Context | 5,548 | 25 | Gutenberg #41063 |
| Address by Honorable William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce at Conference of Regional Chairmen of the Highways Transport Committee Council of National Defense — Reading Notes | 6,631 | 29 | Gutenberg #19758 |
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: 91 public books, 91 available source excerpts.
Do more with this book catalog
The ANRUG Public Domain Literature Library offers a curated collection of 91 works across four categories: Adventure Picaresque Fiction, Science Fiction Utopias, Historical Psychological Social Fiction, and Fantasy Juvenile Worlds. Each title is presented with context, background, and reading tools to help you explore public-domain literature more deeply.
Whether you are looking for a quick read or an immersive marathon, the library provides filters based on length and estimated reading time. Use the tools on this page to find books that match your interests, compare different works, or get a sense of what to expect before you start reading.
91
books in this catalog
4
catalog categories
91
books with reading-time data
Made for this collection
Ways the catalog data becomes useful
Book Finder
Browse the catalog by category, subject, or reading time. Refine your search to find titles that fit your mood and available time.
Compare Books
See how books stack up in terms of word count, reading time, and sentence complexity. Make informed choices about what to read next.
Reading Insights
Get estimates on reading time and text structure. Know what you're getting into before you start a new book.
Using the Library's Three Planning Tools Together
The ANRUG Public Domain Literature Library holds 91 works, most of them from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection is split across four categories, but the categories are broad: a funeral sermon and a picaresque adventure can sit in the same one. That is why the library offers three separate tools, each aimed at a different stage of reading.
Book Finder narrows the field, Compare Books puts two or three candidates side by side, and Reading Tracker turns a chosen text into a page-by-page plan. Used in sequence, they cover the whole path from browsing to finishing.
Start with Book Finder
Book Finder is the place to begin when you have a general interest but no specific title in mind. You can filter by category, word-count length, estimated reading time, chapter rhythm, sentence flow, or subject. The catalog's median book runs about 49,000 words, so most titles can be finished in a few sittings, but the range is considerable. For instance, The Commercial Restraints of Ireland — Context and Discussion (id 279) is a 74,806-word historical discussion, while other works are less than 10,000 words. The Finder's filters let you set a comfortable range before you ever open a book.
The Finder also includes a popularity toggle, which can be useful when you want a well-known title or prefer to explore a hidden gem. Because the catalog is small, even a narrow search often returns only a handful of results. That is a feature, not a flaw: each result can be examined closely in the next tool.
Narrow with Compare Books
Once you have two or three finalists, Compare Books lays out their measurable differences side by side. Word count, estimated reading time, text sections, sentence flow, chapter rhythm, and subjects are all displayed without judgment. You might discover that one book has 12 sections while another has 20, or that one averages 29 words per sentence while another stays near 17. These are not quality ratings, but they do signal how the reading experience will feel.
For example, if you are weighing a dense historical essay against a lighter collection of sketches, the comparison can show you that one will demand longer, more careful sessions. The tool makes those trade-offs explicit.
Plan with Reading Tracker
After you choose a book, Reading Tracker helps you set a daily page goal and records your progress in pages. Since the library does not provide fixed page counts for every book, the tracker estimates pages from word count using a standard of 250 words per page. You can replace that estimate with the page count from your own edition or reading app. The tracker then calculates how many days remain based on your goal.
The Tools Work Together
None of the three tools rates literary quality. They are designed to help you choose, compare, and plan. A book that looks unappealing in Finder might become a favorite once Compare shows its short chapter lengths, and a marathon-length work becomes manageable when the Tracker breaks it into daily pages. Start with a broad search, narrow to a few candidates, and then let the Tracker keep you on pace.