How Long Does It Take to Read Any Book?

Browse reading time estimates by skill level, difficulty ratings, and test your speed on excerpts from popular books.

42 books found

The Holy Bible (King James Version)

Various

ChallengingNon-Fiction
783,137 words54 hr 50 min

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.K. Rowling

EasyFantasy
76,944 words5 hr 23 min

1984

George Orwell

ModerateDystopian Fiction
88,942 words6 hr 14 min

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

ChallengingLiterary Fiction
47,394 words3 hr 19 min

To Kill a Mockingbird

Harper Lee

ModerateSouthern Gothic
100,388 words7 hr 2 min

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen

ChallengingClassic Romance
122,189 words8 hr 33 min

The Catcher in the Rye

J. D. Salinger

ModerateLiterary Fiction
73,404 words5 hr 8 min

Animal Farm

George Orwell

ModeratePolitical Satire
29,966 words2 hr 6 min

Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte

ChallengingGothic Romance
183,858 words12 hr 53 min

Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte

AdvancedGothic Fiction
107,945 words7 hr 34 min

Moby-Dick

Herman Melville

AdvancedEpic Adventure
206,052 words14 hr 26 min

Frankenstein

Mary Shelley

ChallengingGothic Science Fiction
74,800 words5 hr 14 min

Dracula

Bram Stoker

ChallengingGothic Horror
162,000 words11 hr 21 min

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

ChallengingPhilosophical Fiction
78,462 words5 hr 30 min

Great Expectations

Charles Dickens

ChallengingBildungsroman
183,349 words12 hr 50 min

A Tale of Two Cities

Charles Dickens

AdvancedHistorical Fiction
135,420 words9 hr 29 min

Atomic Habits

James Clear

ModerateSelf-Help
80,000 words5 hr 36 min

The Power of Habit

Charles Duhigg

ModeratePsychology
100,000 words7 hr

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Dale Carnegie

ModerateSelf-Help
70,000 words4 hr 54 min

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen R. Covey

ModerateSelf-Help
110,000 words7 hr 42 min

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Robert T. Kiyosaki

EasyPersonal Finance
65,000 words4 hr 33 min

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

ModeratePsychology
45,000 words3 hr 9 min

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius

ChallengingPhilosophy
50,000 words3 hr 30 min

The Art of War

Sun Tzu

ModerateMilitary Strategy
9,800 words41 min

The Wealth of Nations

Adam Smith

AdvancedEconomics
380,000 words26 hr 37 min

The Lord of the Rings (Three-Volume Work)

J.R.R. Tolkien

ChallengingEpic Fantasy
455,125 words31 hr 52 min

The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien

ModerateFantasy
95,022 words6 hr 39 min

The Chronicles of Narnia (Series)

C.S. Lewis

ModerateChildren's Fantasy
345,000 words24 hr 10 min

Dune

Frank Herbert

ChallengingScience Fiction
188,000 words13 hr 10 min

Foundation

Isaac Asimov

ModerateScience Fiction
73,600 words5 hr 9 min

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

ModerateHistorical Fiction
107,000 words7 hr 30 min

The Book Thief

Markus Zusak

ModerateHistorical Fiction
118,000 words8 hr 16 min

Beloved

Toni Morrison

DifficultLiterary Fiction
103,000 words7 hr 13 min

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

ModerateEpistolary Fiction
66,000 words4 hr 37 min

Invisible Man

Ralph Ellison

DifficultLiterary Fiction
151,000 words10 hr 34 min

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston

ModerateLiterary Fiction
63,000 words4 hr 25 min

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

Yuval Noah Harari

ModerateNonfiction
132,000 words9 hr 15 min

Educated

Tara Westover

ModerateMemoir
111,000 words7 hr 46 min

Becoming

Michelle Obama

ModerateMemoir
135,000 words9 hr 27 min

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank

ModerateDiary
70,000 words4 hr 54 min

Night

Elie Wiesel

ModerateMemoir
34,000 words2 hr 23 min

Into the Wild

Jon Krakauer

ModerateNonfiction
63,000 words4 hr 25 min

About Our Book Reading Time Estimates

Our reading time calculations are based on three reading speed tiers: beginner (150 WPM), intermediate (238 WPM, the scientifically validated average from Brysbaert's 2019 meta-analysis), and advanced (350 WPM). Each book also includes a vocabulary difficulty score and sentence complexity rating to help you gauge how challenging the text will be. Try our embedded speed test on any book page to see how fast you read that specific author's prose.

These estimates cover whole books. If you would rather plan a single sitting, see how many pages per hour you finish at your own speed — the figure changes a lot between a paperback novel and a textbook, because their pages hold very different amounts of text.