How Long to Read: 133 Classics, Timed
The honest answer to “how long does it take to read?” for 133 classics, sorted short to long. Times use the standard 238 words-per-minute average; every title links to a full breakdown by reading pace and daily sessions. Want your own pace or another book? The reading time calculator handles any word count, and each book also has a book quiz to test how well it stuck. Counting sessions instead of hours? Most titles now carry a verified chapter count too — the one-a-night unit of a reading habit.
| Book | Words | Pages | Average time |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Little Prince | 15,000 | ~85 | 1 hour and 3 minutes |
| Macbeth | 18,000 | ~100 | 1 hour and 16 minutes |
| The Metamorphosis | 22,000 | ~55 | 1 hour and 32 minutes |
| Romeo and Juliet | 25,000 | ~130 | 1 hour and 45 minutes |
| Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde | 26,000 | ~87 | 1 hour and 49 minutes |
| Alice in Wonderland | 27,000 | ~96 | 1 hour and 53 minutes |
| The Old Man and the Sea | 27,000 | ~96 | 1 hour and 53 minutes |
| Of Mice and Men | 29,200 | ~107 | 2 hours and 3 minutes |
| Animal Farm | 30,000 | ~112 | 2 hours and 6 minutes |
| Hamlet | 30,000 | ~150 | 2 hours and 6 minutes |
| The Time Machine | 32,000 | ~84 | 2 hours and 14 minutes |
| The Call of the Wild | 32,000 | ~128 | 2 hours and 14 minutes |
| Charlotte's Web | 32,000 | ~192 | 2 hours and 14 minutes |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | 32,000 | ~160 | 2 hours and 14 minutes |
| Night | 35,000 | ~115 | 2 hours and 27 minutes |
| Bridge to Terabithia | 37,000 | ~128 | 2 hours and 35 minutes |
| Heart of Darkness | 38,000 | ~96 | 2 hours and 40 minutes |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | 38,000 | ~172 | 2 hours and 40 minutes |
| The Tale of Despereaux | 38,000 | ~272 | 2 hours and 40 minutes |
| The Alchemist | 40,000 | ~208 | 2 hours and 48 minutes |
| Tuesdays with Morrie | 40,000 | ~192 | 2 hours and 48 minutes |
| The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | 40,000 | ~259 | 2 hours and 48 minutes |
| Hatchet | 42,000 | ~195 | 2 hours and 56 minutes |
| The Giver | 43,000 | ~180 | 3 hours and 1 minute |
| The Phantom Tollbooth | 45,000 | ~255 | 3 hours and 9 minutes |
| Fahrenheit 451 | 46,000 | ~158 | 3 hours and 13 minutes |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | 46,500 | ~216 | 3 hours and 15 minutes |
| The Great Gatsby | 47,000 | ~180 | 3 hours and 17 minutes |
| Holes | 47,000 | ~233 | 3 hours and 17 minutes |
| Speak | 47,000 | ~208 | 3 hours and 17 minutes |
| The Outsiders | 48,000 | ~180 | 3 hours and 22 minutes |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | 49,000 | ~215 | 3 hours and 26 minutes |
| A Wrinkle in Time | 49,000 | ~232 | 3 hours and 26 minutes |
| The Notebook | 52,000 | ~214 | 3 hours and 38 minutes |
| And Then There Were None | 54,000 | ~264 | 3 hours and 47 minutes |
| The Road | 58,000 | ~241 | 4 hours and 4 minutes |
| A Little Princess | 58,000 | ~243 | 4 hours and 4 minutes |
| The Wind in the Willows | 59,000 | ~302 | 4 hours and 8 minutes |
| Black Beauty | 59,000 | ~224 | 4 hours and 8 minutes |
| Lord of the Flies | 60,000 | ~224 | 4 hours and 12 minutes |
| Peter Pan | 62,000 | ~267 | 4 hours and 21 minutes |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles | 63,000 | ~190 | 4 hours and 25 minutes |
| Brave New World | 64,000 | ~288 | 4 hours and 29 minutes |
| The Scarlet Letter | 64,000 | ~279 | 4 hours and 29 minutes |
| The Sea of Monsters | 64,000 | ~279 | 4 hours and 29 minutes |
| The Color Purple | 64,000 | ~251 | 4 hours and 29 minutes |
| The Fault in Our Stars | 65,752 | ~313 | 4 hours and 36 minutes |
| Treasure Island | 66,000 | ~292 | 4 hours and 37 minutes |
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | 69,000 | ~274 | 4 hours and 50 minutes |
| The Titan's Curse | 72,000 | ~312 | 5 hours and 3 minutes |
| White Fang | 72,000 | ~298 | 5 hours and 3 minutes |
| The Catcher in the Rye | 73,000 | ~234 | 5 hours and 7 minutes |
| Wonder | 73,000 | ~315 | 5 hours and 7 minutes |
| Frankenstein | 75,000 | ~280 | 5 hours and 15 minutes |
| The Joy Luck Club | 76,000 | ~288 | 5 hours and 19 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | 76,944 | ~320 | 5 hours and 23 minutes |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | 78,000 | ~254 | 5 hours and 28 minutes |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses | 80,000 | ~419 | 5 hours and 36 minutes |
| The Secret Garden | 80,000 | ~331 | 5 hours and 36 minutes |
| The Midnight Library | 81,000 | ~288 | 5 hours and 40 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | 85,141 | ~341 | 5 hours and 58 minutes |
| The Battle of the Labyrinth | 86,000 | ~361 | 6 hours and 1 minute |
| The Lightning Thief | 87,000 | ~377 | 6 hours and 6 minutes |
| 1984 | 89,000 | ~328 | 6 hours and 14 minutes |
| Verity | 90,000 | ~324 | 6 hours and 18 minutes |
| Dune Messiah | 90,000 | ~256 | 6 hours and 18 minutes |
| The Last Olympian | 91,000 | ~381 | 6 hours and 22 minutes |
| The Lovely Bones | 92,000 | ~328 | 6 hours and 27 minutes |
| The Hobbit | 95,000 | ~310 | 6 hours and 39 minutes |
| Anne of Green Gables | 99,000 | ~320 | 6 hours and 56 minutes |
| It Ends with Us | 99,000 | ~376 | 6 hours and 56 minutes |
| The Hunger Games | 99,750 | ~374 | 6 hours and 59 minutes |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | 100,000 | ~336 | 7 hours |
| Ender's Game | 100,000 | ~324 | 7 hours |
| The Neverending Story | 100,000 | ~396 | 7 hours |
| Mockingjay | 100,513 | ~390 | 7 hours and 2 minutes |
| The Handmaid's Tale | 101,000 | ~311 | 7 hours and 4 minutes |
| A Thousand Splendid Suns | 101,000 | ~372 | 7 hours and 4 minutes |
| The Scorch Trials | 101,000 | ~360 | 7 hours and 4 minutes |
| Catching Fire | 101,564 | ~391 | 7 hours and 7 minutes |
| Sunrise on the Reaping | 102,000 | ~400 | 7 hours and 9 minutes |
| Where the Crawdads Sing | 103,000 | ~368 | 7 hours and 13 minutes |
| The Martian | 104,000 | ~369 | 7 hours and 17 minutes |
| Divergent | 105,000 | ~487 | 7 hours and 21 minutes |
| The Death Cure | 107,000 | ~325 | 7 hours and 30 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | 107,253 | ~435 | 7 hours and 31 minutes |
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | 109,000 | ~366 | 7 hours and 38 minutes |
| Insurgent | 110,000 | ~525 | 7 hours and 42 minutes |
| The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | 112,000 | ~400 | 7 hours and 51 minutes |
| The Maze Runner | 112,000 | ~374 | 7 hours and 51 minutes |
| Wuthering Heights | 116,000 | ~416 | 8 hours and 7 minutes |
| Twilight | 118,501 | ~498 | 8 hours and 18 minutes |
| Pride and Prejudice | 122,000 | ~432 | 8 hours and 33 minutes |
| The Kite Runner | 122,000 | ~371 | 8 hours and 33 minutes |
| Project Hail Mary | 124,000 | ~496 | 8 hours and 41 minutes |
| Life of Pi | 127,000 | ~354 | 8 hours and 54 minutes |
| The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes | 128,000 | ~517 | 8 hours and 58 minutes |
| Rebecca | 132,000 | ~380 | 9 hours and 15 minutes |
| New Moon | 132,758 | ~563 | 9 hours and 18 minutes |
| The Odyssey | 134,000 | ~560 | 9 hours and 23 minutes |
| A Tale of Two Cities | 136,000 | ~489 | 9 hours and 31 minutes |
| The Return of the King | 137,000 | ~416 | 9 hours and 36 minutes |
| The Da Vinci Code | 140,000 | ~454 | 9 hours and 48 minutes |
| Allegiant | 140,000 | ~526 | 9 hours and 48 minutes |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude | 144,000 | ~417 | 10 hours and 5 minutes |
| Gone Girl | 146,000 | ~432 | 10 hours and 13 minutes |
| Eclipse | 146,730 | ~629 | 10 hours and 17 minutes |
| Ready Player One | 150,000 | ~374 | 10 hours and 30 minutes |
| Six of Crows | 150,000 | ~465 | 10 hours and 30 minutes |
| The Two Towers | 156,000 | ~352 | 10 hours and 55 minutes |
| The Book Thief | 158,000 | ~552 | 11 hours and 4 minutes |
| Oliver Twist | 159,000 | ~544 | 11 hours and 8 minutes |
| Emma | 160,000 | ~474 | 11 hours and 12 minutes |
| Dracula | 161,000 | ~418 | 11 hours and 16 minutes |
| The Shining | 165,000 | ~447 | 11 hours and 33 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 168,923 | ~652 | 11 hours and 50 minutes |
| The Grapes of Wrath | 169,000 | ~464 | 11 hours and 50 minutes |
| Catch-22 | 174,000 | ~453 | 12 hours and 11 minutes |
| Great Expectations | 183,000 | ~544 | 12 hours and 49 minutes |
| Jane Eyre | 184,000 | ~500 | 12 hours and 53 minutes |
| Little Women | 184,000 | ~449 | 12 hours and 53 minutes |
| Dune | 187,000 | ~412 | 13 hours and 6 minutes |
| The Fellowship of the Ring | 187,000 | ~423 | 13 hours and 6 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | 190,637 | ~734 | 13 hours and 21 minutes |
| Breaking Dawn | 192,196 | ~756 | 13 hours and 28 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | 198,227 | ~759 | 13 hours and 53 minutes |
| Moby-Dick | 206,000 | ~720 | 14 hours and 26 minutes |
| Crime and Punishment | 212,000 | ~671 | 14 hours and 51 minutes |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | 257,045 | ~870 | 18 hours |
| Anna Karenina | 350,000 | ~864 | 24 hours and 31 minutes |
| The Count of Monte Cristo | 375,000 | ~1,276 | 26 hours and 16 minutes |
| Don Quixote | 381,000 | ~1,072 | 26 hours and 41 minutes |
| War and Peace | 561,000 | ~1,225 | 39 hours and 17 minutes |
Reading time by word count
Not reading a whole book? The same question for plain word counts — a blog post, an essay, a chapter, a manuscript — is answered page by page: 250 words · 300 words · 400 words · 500 words · 600 words · 750 words · 800 words · 1,000 words · 1,100 words · 1,200 words · 1,500 words · 1,750 words · 2,000 words · 2,250 words · 2,500 words · 3,000 words · 3,500 words · 4,000 words · 5,000 words · 6,000 words · 7,500 words · 10,000 words · 15,000 words · 20,000 words · 25,000 words · 30,000 words · 40,000 words · 50,000 words. By length in pages instead of words: 50 pages · 100 pages · 150 pages · 200 pages · 250 pages · 300 pages · 400 pages · 500 pages · 750 pages · 1000 pages. Writing to a clock rather than a page? See how many words a speech needs. Or use the reading time calculator for any exact count.
How these reading times are calculated
Two inputs: each book’s word count (counted from the text) and a reading speed. The 238 wpm average comes from Marc Brysbaert’s 2019 meta-analysis of 190 studies — the figure reading-time tools standardly use. Fiction with modern prose sits near that average; dense nineteenth-century novels, verse epics in translation and books with heavy dialect run slower in practice, which each book’s page notes. A “fast” reader at 350 wpm cuts the times by about a third; a careful 150 wpm reader multiplies them by roughly 1.6. For 30 minutes a day — the commute-sized session — the typical classic on this list lasts one to three weeks.
A reality check on the fantasy of speed-reading: courses promising 1,000+ words per minute measure skimming, not reading — comprehension collapses past roughly 400–600 wpm. The practical ceiling for most readers enjoying a novel is 300–350 wpm, and for a Victorian novel or a verse translation, closer to 150–200. Use the slow number for budgeting a deadline and the average number for honest curiosity; either way, the table above keeps the arithmetic out of your reading time.
New quizzes land regularly — the shelf is grouped so you can climb from the short, easy classics (Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby) toward the doorstops (War and Peace, Don Quixote) as your streak builds. Each quiz page also links its book’s reading time, so “I scored 8/8” can immediately become “and the next one costs me six hours.”
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to read a 300-page book?
About 6 hours 20 minutes at the 238 words-per-minute average — roughly 75,000 words. A fast reader (350 wpm) finishes in about 4 hours 20 minutes; a careful 150 wpm reader needs around 10 hours.
How many pages can you read in an hour?
Around 45–55 pages per hour for average adult fiction reading. Speed depends on density: modern prose runs near the average, while Victorian novels or translated verse can halve it.
Do audiobook times match reading times?
Not exactly. Narrators read at roughly 150–160 wpm, slower than the 238 wpm eye-reading average, so an audiobook of the same text typically lasts about 50% longer than silent reading.
Is 30 minutes of reading a day enough to finish the classics?
Yes — at half an hour a day, most classics on this shelf take between one and three weeks. War and Peace is the outlier at around six weeks; Animal Farm is a single afternoon.