Sorted after counting, never before
Easiest books to read
The most accessible prose, by readability score. Topped by Chaucer's Works, Volume 2 — Boethius and Troilus at grade 2.3.
SOURCE·Project Gutenberg full texts·50 of 683 measured texts ranked·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The first fifty, measured
| # | Book | Author | books to read | Reading time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chaucer's Works, Volume 2 — Boethius and Troilus | Chaucer, Geoffrey | grade 2.3 | 13h 43m |
| 2 | A Doll's House | Ibsen, Henrik | grade 2.3 | 1h 47m |
| 3 | The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [Vol. 3 of 9] | Shakespeare, William | grade 2.7 | 8h 48m |
| 4 | Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare, William | grade 2.9 | 1h 44m |
| 5 | The Waterloo Roll Call | Dalton, Charles | grade 2.9 | 6h 16m |
| 6 | Love's Labour's Lost | Shakespeare, William | grade 3 | 1h 31m |
| 7 | As You Like It | Shakespeare, William | grade 3.4 | 1h 33m |
| 8 | Oedipus King of Thebes | Sophocles | grade 3.4 | 1h 13m |
| 9 | The Complete Works of William Shakespeare | Shakespeare, William | grade 3.5 | 64h 17m |
| 10 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | Shakespeare, William | grade 3.6 | 1h 09m |
| 11 | I am a woman | Bannon, Ann | grade 3.8 | 5h 00m |
| 12 | Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame | Chaucer, Geoffrey | grade 3.9 | 14h 39m |
| 13 | The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry | Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron | grade 3.9 | 8h 07m |
| 14 | A farewell to arms | Hemingway, Ernest | grade 4 | 5h 55m |
| 15 | The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume I | Behn, Aphra | grade 4 | 10h 21m |
| 16 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Wilde, Oscar | grade 4.1 | 1h 23m |
| 17 | Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare, William | grade 4.1 | 4h 54m |
| 18 | The wheel of earth | Sandburg, Helga | grade 4.2 | 7h 32m |
| 19 | Romeo and Juliet | Shakespeare, William | grade 4.5 | 1h 43m |
| 20 | The mysterious Mr. Quin | Christie, Agatha | grade 4.6 | 5h 14m |
| 21 | The Sex Life of the Gods | Knerr, M. E. (Michael E.) | grade 4.8 | 2h 09m |
| 22 | The Trail of '98 | Service, Robert W. (Robert William) | grade 4.8 | 8h 12m |
| 23 | Torchy and Vee | Ford, Sewell | grade 5 | 4h 43m |
| 24 | The Secret Adversary | Christie, Agatha | grade 5 | 5h 01m |
| 25 | The loot of the Lazy A | Tuttle, W. C. (Wilbur C.) | grade 5.1 | 2h 18m |
| 26 | The murder of Roger Ackroyd | Christie, Agatha | grade 5.2 | 4h 44m |
| 27 | Wizard | Janifer, Laurence M. | grade 5.2 | 29 min |
| 28 | The Raft | Dawson, Coningsby | grade 5.2 | 9h 32m |
| 29 | Love and Lucy | Hewlett, Maurice | grade 5.2 | 4h 04m |
| 30 | Modern English biography, volume 1 (of 4), A-H | Boase, Frederic | grade 5.3 | 37h 25m |
| 31 | The Roll of Honour, Volume 1 | Ruvigny et Raineval, Melville Henry Massue, marquis de | grade 5.3 | 51h 19m |
| 32 | The Yellow Crayon | Oppenheim, E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) | grade 5.3 | 5h 03m |
| 33 | The Ambulance Made Two Trips | Leinster, Murray | grade 5.4 | 31 min |
| 34 | Ulysses | Joyce, James | grade 5.4 | 17h 38m |
| 35 | The Man in the Brown Suit | Christie, Agatha | grade 5.4 | 5h 03m |
| 36 | The Seven Dials mystery | Christie, Agatha | grade 5.4 | 4h 21m |
| 37 | Life Blood | Hoover, Thomas | grade 5.5 | 6h 47m |
| 38 | The Man Upstairs and Other Stories | Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville) | grade 5.5 | 6h 40m |
| 39 | Practical Mechanics for Boys | Zerbe, James Slough | grade 5.5 | 2h 42m |
| 40 | The Blue Castle | Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud) | grade 5.6 | 4h 38m |
| 41 | The Red House Mystery | Milne, A. A. (Alan Alexander) | grade 5.6 | 4h 02m |
| 42 | Concrete Construction | Gillette, Halbert Powers | grade 5.6 | 12h 38m |
| 43 | Supermind | Garrett, Randall | grade 5.6 | 4h 44m |
| 44 | Bambi | Cooke, Marjorie Benton | grade 5.6 | 4h 22m |
| 45 | The Murder on the Links | Christie, Agatha | grade 5.7 | 4h 21m |
| 46 | The Picture of Dorian Gray | Wilde, Oscar | grade 5.7 | 5h 17m |
| 47 | The Secret Garden | Burnett, Frances Hodgson | grade 5.7 | 5h 24m |
| 48 | The Black Moth | Heyer, Georgette | grade 5.7 | 6h 11m |
| 49 | Modern English biography, volume 2 (of 4), I-Q | Boase, Frederic | grade 5.8 | 39h 57m |
| 50 | Occasion ... for Disaster | Garrett, Randall | grade 5.8 | 4h 30m |
Ranked over the 683 texts measured here, not over everything ever printed — a ranking is only as wide as its shelf. The whole shelf, A to Z.
