brian wang

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Time lag

On average, you finish a book 55 years after it was published (median 19). 30 were less than five years old; 11 had waited a century or more.

55 avg years waited
19 median lag
30 ≤5 years old
11 century+ waits

Publication year × wait

Each dot is a book. Higher means it waited longer to reach you. Ancient texts above 200 years are pinned to the top.

 
0y 50y 100y 150y 200y 125600107515492024

Books that waited

The longest journeys from publication to your shelf.

  1. The Manual Epictetus · pub 125
    1896 years
  2. Julius Caesar William Shakespeare · pub 1599
    423 years
  3. Macbeth William Shakespeare · pub 1623
    401 years
  4. The Pied Piper of Hamelin Robert Browning · pub 1842
    180 years
  5. Evangeline Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · pub 1847
    174 years
  6. Silas Marner George Eliot · pub 1861
    161 years
  7. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle · pub 1892
    128 years
  8. The Awakening Kate Chopin · pub 1899
    124 years
  9. As a Man Thinketh James Allen · pub 1902
    119 years
  10. Dubliners James Joyce · pub 1914
    110 years
  11. This Side of Paradise F. Scott Fitzgerald · pub 1920
    104 years
  12. The Man in the Brown Suit Agatha Christie · pub 1924
    98 years

Still warm from the press

Shortest gaps between publication and finishing.

By era of origin

  • Ancient–1800 3
  • 19th century 5
  • 1900–1949 17
  • 1950–1979 16
  • 1980–1999 17
  • 2000–2009 19
  • 2010–2019 42
  • 2020+ 11

Average wait by era: Ancient: 907y · 19th century: 153y · 1900: 88y · 1950: 60y · 1980: 35y · 2000: 18y · 2010: 6y · 2020+: 2y

TBR marinade

Days between adding a book and finishing it — the personal wait, not the historical one.

  1. Snow Crash
    1,556 days
  2. Fiesta
    367 days
  3. The Goldfinch
    148 days
  4. Otaku
    147 days
  5. The God of the Woods
    147 days
  6. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
    127 days
  7. Shanzhai
    117 days
  8. Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
    102 days
  9. Knowing God
    98 days
  10. Hello, Habits
    97 days

Publication years come from enrichment (Hardcover / Open Library / Google Books). Negative BC years are included; The Art of War will always win.