About 31 minutes
The Laugh Maker — Inside the Classic
Science Fiction Utopias
7,083 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #67154
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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 40 minutes
The Last Laugh — Reading Companion
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
9,172 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #67070About 53 minutes
The Worst Joke in the World — Background and Themes
Historical Psychological Social Fiction
12,003 recorded words. Selected by the catalog's stored reading-time estimate.
View Gutenberg source #67373Search the excerpts stored with this catalog
95 of 95 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 Crystal Cup — Reading Companion
a staccato delivery, which she made no attempt to modify in the sick-room, and the old lady frowned. “I never cared for your mother, but she had a soft low voice, ‘an excellent thing in woman.’ Why did you not model your own upon it? And you do all you can to distort and destroy the Carteret beauty in your attempt to look like a boy. The Carteret women were all dashing brunettes, but feminine. Otherwise they never would have had men crawling at their feet, generation after generation.” “If men…
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Compare two books and their available excerpts
| Book | Recorded words | Estimated minutes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Laugh Maker — Inside the Classic | 7,083 | 31 | Gutenberg #67154 |
| The Last Laugh — Reading Companion | 9,172 | 40 | Gutenberg #67070 |
| The Worst Joke in the World — Background and Themes | 12,003 | 53 | Gutenberg #67373 |
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: 95 public books, 95 available source excerpts.
Do more with this book catalog
This library brings together 95 public-domain works, organized into four categories: Historical Psychological Social Fiction, Adventure Picaresque Fiction, Fantasy Juvenile Worlds, and Science Fiction Utopias. Each title includes details on length, reading time, and subject tags, so you can choose a book that fits your interests and schedule.
The tools on this page help you navigate the collection. Use the Finder to search by category, length, or subject. The Compare tool lets you weigh two books side by side. The Reading companion offers honest estimates of reading time and sentence complexity, so you know what to expect before you start.
95
books in this catalog
4
catalog categories
95
books with reading-time data
Made for this collection
Ways the catalog data becomes useful
Book Finder
Pinpoint books by category, length, or subject. With 95 titles across four categories and tags like detective stories or historical fiction, you can narrow the list to match your taste.
Compare Books
Place two books side by side to see word count, reading time, and subject overlap. Useful for choosing between similar works or planning a reading order.
Reading Companion
Get honest estimates of reading time based on word count, plus average sentence length. Know before you start whether a book is a quick read or a longer commitment.
Choosing a Path: How the Library Tools Work Together
The YHOCAM Public Domain Literature Library offers three tools that work best when used in sequence: Book Finder, Compare Books, and Reading Tracker. Each serves a distinct purpose, but together they help you move from a vague sense of what you might enjoy to a concrete plan for reading. The catalog holds 95 public-domain titles across four categories, ranging from Adventure Picaresque Fiction to Science Fiction Utopias. Because the collection is small and focused, the tools are not just filters; they let you see how one choice affects another. For example, a book like "The path of honor: A tale of the war in the Bocage — Key Ideas to Explore" sits in Historical Psychological Social Fiction, with a word count near 78,000 and an estimated reading time of about 341 minutes. That combination of category, length, and time gives you a sense of the commitment before you begin.
Start with Book Finder to Shape Your Options
Book Finder is the natural starting point because it lets you set broad criteria: category, word-count length, estimated reading time, chapter rhythm, sentence flow, and subjects. You might select Historical Psychological Social Fiction and the "long" length band, or choose a subject like "Dime novels" to see which of the six titles in that subject appear. The tool does not penalize you for leaving criteria at no preference, so you can start with just one or two filters and then widen your view. For instance, if you are drawn to stories set in France, selecting the subject "France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction" would surface "The path of honor" alongside any other matching titles.
Use Compare Books to See the Trade-Offs
Once Book Finder narrows the list to two or three candidates, Compare Books puts them side by side. The comparison shows word count, estimated reading time, text sections, sentence flow, chapter rhythm, subjects, and page information when available. These metrics are descriptive, not judgments of quality. You might compare "The path of honor" with a shorter title like "The Gold Brick" (about 70,000 words) to see how the difference in sections affects pacing. The path of honor has 42 text sections, while The Gold Brick has 17, so the former likely breaks the story into smaller pieces, which can suit readers who prefer frequent stopping points.
Track Progress with the Reading Tracker
After you choose a book, the Reading Tracker helps you plan and monitor your reading. It records progress in pages, with a current page, total pages, and a daily page goal. The default goal is 20 pages per day, but you can adjust it. The initial page count is estimated by dividing the word count by 250 words per page, unless the catalog provides a fixed page count. For "The path of honor," that estimate would be about 314 pages. If your own edition shows a different total, you can replace the estimate. The tracker then calculates estimated remaining time and finish days, storing your history in the browser without requiring an account.