Counted, not gradedBooks to read in English: 12 free classics, from everyday words to hard ones

First shelf: 88 or more everyday words in every 100

1The Happy Prince and Other Tales

Oscar Wilde, 1888 · five short tales

Five fairy tales: a statue that gives away its gold, a nightingale, a giant with a garden, a miller, and a rocket with a high opinion of itself. They average a little over 3,000 words, so you finish one in a sitting. That matters more than it sounds when you read in a second language.

The words are plain: 88 of every 100 are everyday ones. What you’ll look up are the birds and things of a fairy tale: swallow, nightingale, linnet, wheelbarrow. Sentences run to 18 words on average.

2Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll, 1865 · the most everyday words

A girl follows a rabbit down a hole and spends twelve chapters arguing with everyone she meets. The plot asks little of you: each chapter is a new scene with new creatures, so a chapter you only half understood doesn’t spoil the next.

It has the most everyday words of the twelve, 90 of every 100, and much of the rest is the creatures: hatter, caterpillar, footman. The catch is the wordplay. Carroll puns, and a pun is the one thing the translation of a single word won’t give you. Select the whole sentence and use “Explain”.

3The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

L. Frank Baum, 1900 · 24 short chapters

A storm carries Dorothy from Kansas to a country where only a wizard can send her home, and she walks to him with three companions who each want something too. Baum tells it in order, in 24 chapters of about 1,600 words.

89 of every 100 words are everyday ones, and the rest keeps coming back: “woodman” 182 times, “tin” 139, “emerald” 59. Learn a dozen such words in the first chapters, and the book stops sending you to the dictionary.

4The Secret Garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1911 · short sentences, long book

A sour, lonely girl is sent from India to her uncle’s house on the Yorkshire moors, where there is a garden nobody has entered for ten years. It’s the longest book on this shelf, but its sentences are among the shortest of the twelve: 14 words on average.

One warning. The Yorkshire characters speak Yorkshire: “tha’” for “you” comes 234 times and “th’” for “the” 344 times. Once you know those two, a good part of the dialect reads as English with letters left out. For the rest, such as “nowt” and “wick”, select the phrase.

Second shelf: 86 or 87 in every 100

5The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925 · the youngest book here

A summer on Long Island in 1922, told by the neighbour of a man who gives enormous parties and waits for one guest. Nine chapters and the shortest novel on this shelf.

It’s the youngest book of the twelve, and its sentences are short, 15 words on average. What the count can’t see is Fitzgerald’s imagery: everyday words put together in ways no phrasebook has. When a sentence escapes you, translate the whole sentence, not its words.

6The Hound of the Baskervilles

Arthur Conan Doyle, 1902 · a detective story in 15 chapters

A family legend about a giant dog, a death on the moor, and Dr. Watson sent to Devon to watch and report. A detective story suits a second language for a plain reason: you want to know who did it, so you keep reading.

87 of every 100 words are everyday ones, and sentences run to 16 words. The landscape brings its own vocabulary: “moor” comes 163 times, then mire, hut, fog.

7The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde, 1891 · the shortest sentences

A young man wishes that his portrait would grow old instead of him, and gets what he asked for. Twenty chapters.

Its sentences are the shortest of the twelve, 13 words on average, because so much of the book is conversation, and the conversation is epigrams. An epigram is short and still takes thought: the words are easy, the meaning is turned inside out. Chapter XI is the exception, a long catalogue of perfumes, jewels and tapestries. Skim it without guilt.

8The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle, 1892 · twelve stories

Twelve separate cases of about 8,700 words each. That’s the point: a story is done in an evening, the next one starts with the same two men in the same rooms, and what you learned about how Watson writes carries over.

87 of every 100 words are everyday ones, and sentences run to 16 words. What you’ll look up is Victorian manners more than crime: remarked, singular, companion, visitor.

9Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen, 1813 · long sentences, worth it

Five unmarried sisters, a rich new neighbour and his richer friend. It’s a comedy about people misjudging each other, and the oldest book on this list.

The words aren’t rare: 87 of every 100 are everyday ones. The sentences are the work, 21 words on average, and what you’ll look up are the nouns of polite society: “manner” 96 times, “acquaintance” 62, “behaviour” 55. Read it after a shorter book, and use “Whole paragraph” freely. The EPUB is the illustrated edition of 1894 and opens with a preface; the count starts at chapter I.

Third shelf: 85 or fewer in every 100

10The Gift of the Magi

O. Henry, 1905 · the shortest, not the easiest

A young couple, one dollar and eighty-seven cents, and Christmas tomorrow. The whole story is about 2,100 words: a quarter of an hour of reading.

It’s the shortest text here and not the easiest: 85 of every 100 words are everyday ones, because O. Henry likes a show-off phrase. The first page has “imputation of parsimony” and “mendicancy squad”. But a hard word in a short story costs little: look up twenty of them, and you’ve read a classic.

11The Call of the Wild

Jack London, 1903 · short, with rough words

Buck, a big house dog from California, is stolen and sold north to pull sleds in the Klondike gold rush. Seven chapters.

A short book isn’t an easy one: 82 of every 100 words are everyday ones, the second lowest here. London writes about work, so the rare words are gear and motion: “sled” 63 times, traces, harness, sprang. Two of the men speak a French-Canadian English that London spells by ear, “dat” for “that”.

12Frankenstein

Mary Shelley, 1818 · the hardest words here

A student makes a living creature and runs from it. The story comes as letters, with a story inside them and another inside that.

By the count it’s the hardest of the twelve: 80 of every 100 words are everyday ones, and sentences run to 23 words. The rare words are feelings written large: “misery” 54 times, “despair” 49, “countenance” 39. Read it when the others feel comfortable, or read it now and translate by the paragraph.