ReadingRate · What's new · 2026-07-05
See your reading mapped onto Frye's Anatomy of Criticism
ReadingRate includes an interactive atlas built on Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism — his framework of modes, symbols, myths and genres — and plots your own finished books onto it. Instead of a list of what you have read, you get a picture of which seasons and modes your reading clusters in, and which parts of the map you have never visited.
Available on web and iOS.
Frye's argument was that literature has a structure that can be described rather than merely appreciated, and that individual works sit in relation to each other within it. That is a far more interesting thing to do with a reading history than count it.
The atlas is browsable on its own as a guide to the framework, with a wheel of literature, shelf quadrants and a glossary — so it works as reference reading whether or not you have a library here.
What it can't do
- Classification is automated, and Frye's categories are arguments rather than facts. Reasonable critics would place some books differently.
- It plots finished books, so a sparse library produces a sparse map.
- Frye's framework was built around Western literature and inherits that scope.
Questions people ask
- What is Anatomy of Criticism?
- Northrop Frye's 1957 study of literary structure — modes, symbols, myths and genres. ReadingRate implements it as a browsable atlas and maps your own finished books onto it.