Improve your typing speed by retyping classic literature

Read the works of Charles Dickens

Dickens' work has long been in the public domain, meaning it's freely available to readers. Project Gutenberg's collection of Dickens' novels allows you to read classic novels like "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities," as well as early works like "Sketches by Boz," at no cost.

14 famous authors trash-talking classic books

Just because something's considered a "classic" doesn't mean it's universally loved. Even the world's most respected writers don't agree on what defines great literature. Look no further than this list of writers criticizing canonical texts, like Charlotte Brontë deriding Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" or Virginia Woolf on James Joyce's "Ulysses." The most succinct might be Aldous Huxley on Jack Kerouac's "On the Road": "I got a little bored after a time. I mean, the road seemed to be awfully long."

Audit a Yale course on great American novels after 1945

Wish you'd paid more attention back in college? There's good news: You can still pop into some college classes, without having to pay tuition (or write term papers). This course from one-time Yale professor Amy Hungerford walks through the great American novels after World War II, including works from Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, and more.

A computational analysis of Jane Austen's writing

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln translated Austen's novels into code to analyze her diction, then published their findings in a searchable database. Users can explore all six of her novels, analyzing the unique words used by her characters and the narrative techniques she employs.

Get lost in these historical libraries

The internet has changed a lot about how we learn, explore new ideas, and conduct research, particularly when it comes to the spaces we learn in. While few of us would trade our smartphones for a walk in a historical library, a walk through some of the beautifully designed cathedrals of learning could remind us to put them down sometimes. Explore 10 of the world's magnificent libraries with this quick video survey.

The printing press spread novels widely

Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in 1440 changed how writing was reproduced. It allowed multiple manuscripts to be copied via movable type rather than by hand, making more literature more widely available. Over time, that change caused literacy rates to rise, creating a market for even more literature.

The typo that scandalized a continent

One printing mistake in the 17th century proved so unfortunate it cost two men their careers and scandalized religious folks for centuries. Read the story here.

Find your next book by prompting this AI

Have a general idea of the sort of book you'd like to read next, but don't know how to find a specific one? Try this fun and impressive tool. Describe the type of book you're looking for. It will suggest five options which attempt to meet your prompt. Find your next page-turner with this very cool tool.

How famous writers chose their pen names

From Joseph Conrad to JK Rowling, writers employ pseudonyms for all kinds of reasons. How they find those pseudonyms, however, depends on the individual.

One hundred ways to improve your life without really trying

Whether it’s taking fruit to work (and to the bedroom!), being polite to rude strangers or taking up skinny-dipping, here’s a century of ways to make life better, with little effort involved …

Play a puzzle game where the speed of light is reduced to everyday speeds

In "Velocity Raptor," space and time warp as you make your way across a room of obstacles at "normal" speeds. Take advantage of these relativistic effects to solve puzzles involving clocks running at different rates and colors shifting as a result of your movement.

Practice encrypting and decrypting text using an online library of ciphers

This tool provides users with customizable protocols, including Caesar, Affine, and Vigenère ciphers, to hide messages in transformed text and convert them back into legible formats. Mechanisms are also available to convert text into other communication languages, such as Morse code and URL encoding.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

'For it would seem—her case proved it—that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.'

- Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) in "Orlando: A Biography"

Read a 19th-century guide to writing a Valentine's Day card

Thomas Richardson's "London Fashionable Gentleman's Valentine Writer" offers readers romantic messages they can send to the objects of their eyes—along with some chippy kiss-offs for unwanted suitors. It might be sincere, or it might be satire. Either way, it's an entertaining read. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Browse a fan-made 'Newspeak Dictionary'

In Orwell's "1984," citizens of Oceania are expected to use Newspeak, a form of English that limits abstract thought and reinforces the government's version of reality. This satirical dictionary of the language demonstrates how Orwell constructed a lexicon for his fictional world.

Type out a tone and play it back with this fun game

Compose an original piece of music from your phone or desktop with this simple, super fun interface: Just start typing, discover the various sounds associated with each key or letter, and then press play. Go back, tweak, delete, and revise to your...

Stephen King doesn't believe writing can be taught

But he does believe it can be learned. He argues that the best writers are "voracious readers" who start their careers by copying the style of the masters before developing their own.

How reading and writing can lower dementia risk by almost 40%

Research published in 2026 that tracked almost 2,000 older adults for an average of nearly eight years suggests that lifelong exposure to intellectual stimulation, such as learning a language, reading, and writing, can lower dementia risk by as much as 40%.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ in three days, then burned it

Stevenson woke from a dream and instantly got to writing the “fine bogey tale” he’d witnessed in his sleep. He finished a draft three days later and read it to his wife, who suggested it needed revising. Stevenson eventually agreed and threw the manuscript into the fireplace. He got back to work and emerged three more days later with another draft.

That time two journalists raced around the world in 80 days

In 1889, Journalist Nellie Bly, née Elizabeth Jane Cochran, set sail on a journey around the world to compete with Phileas Fogg, the protagonist of the 1872 fiction novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." This short video explains how competing...

Read passages from Truth's autobiography, dictated because she was illiterate

Because Truth was illiterate, her memoir was dictated to and written by Olive Gilbert. Published in 1850, "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" recounts her life in slavery, escape to freedom, and religious awakening.

Computer pioneer Alan Turing was also an elite runner

Alan Turing is credited with helping to found modern computer science, in addition to cracking the Nazi code known as Enigma. Beyond these world-historical achievements, the British mathematician also nearly represented his country in the Olympics in the marathon, running just 11 minutes slower than the eventual gold recipient at the 1948 games. Read more on this lesser-known aspect of the man here.

'The Republic of Letters' was an analog internet for the Enlightenment.

The virtual intellectual society exchanged tens of thousands of letters and spanned several continents. Some of its most avid correspondents were Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.

Typists are among the fastest shrinking jobs in the US

Typists and word processors have a projected employment change of roughly negative 36.1% between 2024 and 2034, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Telephone operators, data entry keyers, and other occupations will likely see reduced employment opportunities as well.

Learn to speak the ancient Aztec language Nahuatl

Across the Aztec Empire, you'd be met with variants of Nahuatl, the indigenous language still spoken by approximately 1.5 million people today. This free, self-paced online university course teaches the Veracruz variant, beginning from the language's "piltlahcuiloltzitzin"—or alphabet—to how to conduct specific "tlamachtiliztli" or ceremonies.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.