Discover literature to read in German at your level

We have assessed 61 books in German literature for vocabulary, grammar and other factors. Find all the results of our analysis and read the literature for free here!

German books difficulty ranking for learners

Below you can see our list of German books evaluated for difficulty. The scores range from 1 - 100, and the higher the score the higher the difficulty. Click on any column to sort, or click on the title of any text to open a more detailed analysis. You can also use the menu on the top to navigate to our other rankings. If you want to know more about what these criteria mean, scroll down. There is also a short German texts difficulty index available.

No. Title Author Length (words) Grammar score Vocabulary score Overall score Detailed analysis Read online Interlinear
1 Heimatlos - Geschichten für Kinder und auch für solche, welche die Kinder lieb haben Johanna Spyri 63,086 50 49 5050% Open
2 Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre Johanna Spyri 51,236 51 51 5151% Open
3 In der Strafkolonie Franz Kafka 10,519 53 48 5151% Open
4 Heidi kann brauchen, was es gelernt hat Johanna Spyri 38,289 50 53 5252% Open
5 Mädchen vom Moorhof Selma Lagerlöf 76,680 50 53 5252% Open
6 Reineke Fuchs Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 41,652 52 52 5252% Open
7 Alice's Abenteuer im Wunderland Lewis Carroll 27,290 50 55 5353% Open
8 Fabeln und Erzählungen Christian Fürchtegott Gellert 32,286 51 54 5353% Open
9 Kasperle auf Reisen Josephine Siebe 43,633 51 54 5353% Open
10 Herr und Knecht Leo Tolstoy 21,681 53 55 5454% Open
11 Menschen der Ehe John Henry Mackay 14,588 53 55 5454% Open
12 Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke 59,398 53 56 5555% Open
13 Brennendes Geheimnis Stefan Zweig 22,792 57 53 5555% Open
14 Hermann und Dorothea Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 19,826 50 60 5555% Open
15 Weihnachtsabend (Eine Geistergeschichte) Charles Dickens 28,415 55 57 5656% Open
16 Weihnachtsabend (Eine Geistergeschichte) (Version 2) Charles Dickens 28,415 55 57 5656% Open
17 Abenteuer Tom Sawyers Mark Twain 68,570 58 56 5757% Open
18 Abenteuer Tom Sawyers (Duett) Mark Twain 68,419 58 56 5757% Open
19 Effi Briest Theodor Fontane 99,141 55 58 5757% Open
20 Effi Briest (Version 2) Theodor Fontane 99,141 55 58 5757% Open
21 Leiden des jungen Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 17,715 55 60 5858% Open
22 Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törleß Robert Musil 52,398 62 55 5959% Open
23 Backfischchen's Leiden und Freuden Clementine Helm 67,136 61 59 6060% Open
24 Faust - Der Tragödie erster Teil Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 30,636 54 65 6060% Open
25 Landarzt. Kleine Erzählungen Franz Kafka 13,329 61 59 6060% Open
26 Leonorenlieder Johann Christian Günther 16,779 55 65 6060% Open
27 Mitteilungen aus den Memoiren des Satan Wilhelm Hauff 92,251 59 60 6060% Open
28 acht Gesichter am Biwasee Max Dauthendey 43,357 54 67 6161% Open
29 Caspar Hauser oder die Trägheit des Herzens Jakob Wassermann 135,281 62 60 6161% Open
30 Frau Bovary Gustave Flaubert 118,556 58 64 6161% Open
31 Leben und Schicksale des Katers Rosaurus Amalie Winter 21,957 58 63 6161% Open
32 Arme Spielmann Franz Grillparzer 15,066 56 68 6262% Open
33 Briefe aus dem Gefängnis Rosa Luxemburg 13,561 60 64 6262% Open
34 Bulemanns Haus Theodor Storm 6,772 59 65 6262% Open
35 Familie Pfäffling Agnes Sapper 63,979 59 66 6363% Open
36 Trotzkopf Emmy von Rhoden 69,573 56 69 6363% Open
37 Kloster bei Sendomir Franz Grillparzer 9,264 62 66 6464% Open
38 Nachtstücke E. T. A. Hoffmann 107,691 62 65 6464% Open
39 Rousseau Paul Hensel 33,342 63 65 6464% Open
40 Woyzeck Georg Büchner 6,296 47 81 6464% Open
41 Buch der Lieder Heinrich Heine 29,312 48 82 6565% Open
42 Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen Heinrich Heine 11,960 54 76 6565% Open
43 Sieben Gedichte Edgar Allan Poe 29,158 61 69 6565% Open
44 Stadt ohne Juden Hugo Bettauer 30,981 63 66 6565% Open
45 Götzendämmerung Friedrich Nietzsche 25,162 59 74 6767% Open
46 Mein Weg als Deutscher und Jude Jakob Wassermann 34,540 62 72 6767% Open
47 Menschen im Krieg Andreas Latzko 35,716 63 70 6767% Open
48 Unterm Birnbaum Theodor Fontane 34,894 56 77 6767% Open
49 Einige Gedichte Friedrich Schiller 5,610 57 79 6868% Open
50 Novelle Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 7,116 64 72 6868% Open
51 Über Psychoanalyse Sigmund Freud 15,543 66 73 7070% Open
52 Aquis submersus Theodor Storm 24,099 59 83 7171% Open
53 Bhagavadgita - des Erhabenen Sang Unknown 25,798 58 83 7171% Open
54 Mann im Mond oder Der Zug des Herzens ist des Schicksals Stimme Wilhelm Hauff 80,439 60 81 7171% Open
55 Schuß von der Kanzel Conrad Ferdinand Meyer 14,218 63 78 7171% Open
56 Ferien vom Ich Paul Keller 77,481 60 83 7272% Open
57 Mann im Nebel Gustav Falke 38,476 56 89 7373% Open
58 Lob der Narrheit Desiderius Erasmus 35,314 63 86 7575% Open
59 Wolkenüberflaggt Ernst Wilhelm Lotz 5,188 57 93 7575% Open
60 Aladdin und die Wunderlampe Ludwig Fulda 17,517 65 96 8181% Open
61 Reise durch England und Schottland Johanna Schopenhauer 77,591 72 89 8181% Open

How to use this ranking

The ranking above provides you with a rough analysis of the grammatical, vocabulary and overall difficulty of the works, and it also includes the links to find out more, or even to read the work. It works as follows:

  • title is not only the official name of the work, but also, by clicking on it, you can open a more detailed analysis;
  • author, length are also pretty self-explanatory;
  • grammar score is a score computed by calculating and combining various indexes (ARI, CLI, MTLD, HDD, Yule's I - you can find out more about them by clicking through to the more detailed analysis part on any of the titles);
  • vocabulary score is a score based on the frequency of use of words in the text (much more analysis on it is also provided if you click through to the more-detailed analysis);
  • overall score is just a grammar and vocabulary score averaged out, although sometimes these scores are also weighed and adjusted for specific kinds of literature (most prominently - for poetry);
  • detailed analysis is a link to a special page with a much more detailed analysis, which we have compiled for each work;
  • the 'read' link is a link to read the work in its entirety on the website (we provide such links when that is legally and technically possible);
  • the 'Interlinear' link is a link to an Interlinear (or 'subtitled') version of this work when the original text has a translation below each word or expression (such a link exists only if an Interlinear text is available).

Please also have in mind that the list provided on this page is language-specific, and still experimental - thus its results might not be comparable with any results in any other of our languages (and perhaps not even with the short texts list. We might quite likely come up with more precise lists in the future as we improve our methods - but hopefully this one still give you an indication about what literature to choose.

Other resources and languages

First, you should have a look at out our other page with German short stories or poetry instead of books.

Then we suggest you also check out our literature discovery tool in languages other than German. You can do so here:

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And finally, if you are interested in languages and literature - please take a look at our project Interlinear Books. We have a mission to bring literature to language learning, and we have been largely using Interlinear translations to do that - you can find books to purchase and short free Interlinear texts on our site. You can even find a German Interlinear book up for sale on our site.