Five Short Books That Are Better Than Most Long Books

Shout out to writers who get to the point.

If you entered into a year-long Reading Challenge, and are feeling heat as the year winds down, here’s a tip: just read shorter books.

If your book club is in danger of buckling under excessive page counts, assign shorter books.

If you love reading, but end up DNF’ing stuff simply because you’re alive in the 21st Century and the author seems to have nothing better to do than roll an idea around for 50 pages, get into shorter books.

They’re not worse. And they’re not “less serious.” And they count the same as a doorstop.

Here are some titles that punch at the 2-, 3-, 4-, or 500-page weight class. If you know others (and I know you do), PLEASE ADD THEM in the comments, because I’d like to check them out.

I added buy links that go to Bookshop.org, which kicks back a portion of sales to indie bookstores. The links in this post will help Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, NY.

Parade: A Folktale
Hiromi Kawakami, 2019

A weird little book recommended by a friend at the bar after one of my shows. Basically, a woman wakes up to find that two characters from Japanese folklore (“tengu”) have attached themselves to her and are arguing with each other. Some people can see them, some people can’t. One gets sick? I don’t even know what I’m talking about right now but it was cool. I’m interested in checking out her other work.

A Shining
Jon Fosse, 2023

"...yes, I'm in the forest, but then again, this isn't like how things are in a forest, is it." A man decides to drive his car aimlessly, ends up stuck in the woods, and is visited by cryptic apparitions. That's all I'll say. When I read Lauren Groff’s engrossing review in the Guardian, I pocketed my phone and walked straight to the aforementioned Books Are Magic, my local indie, to pick it up. The writing is as murky and circuitous as the forest itself, and even though it's 74 pages long, you'll swear you were lost and wandering among the trees, too.

The Gospel of Orla
Eoghan Walls, 2023

A troubled teen plans to escape her precarious home life by bike, but in mid-flight crashes into Jesus, who is having troubles of his own finding an audience for eternal salvation in a cynical, modern world. Befitting this Northern Irish poet's roots, the language is jagged, the scenery flies, and I’ll tell you this: I doubt you’ve ever been here before. I was genuinely sad to have finished it, because I know this is the only place remotely like it.

Bonsai
Alejandro Zambra, 2022

People read books and have sex for 83 pages. Conflicts include which character from Madame Bovary they remind each other of. Still, the ending was strangely moving.

The Writing Life
Annie Dillard, 1990

Read this and tell me if you think it’s funny. “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case…What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?” If you just burst out laughing, you may be a writer. This book is full of gems like that, and I laughed out loud in the way one might while driving off a cliff. You know, in the good way?

Small Things Like These; Foster; and So Late in the Day, by Claire Keegan

Irish writers are different. I don’t know what it is about them, but it’s all here—the dramatic landscape, the tumultuous history, Catholicism, and the restrained language that makes every word feel like a spilled secret. Each book is only 100 pages or so, and put together, it would be one of the greatest no-skip short story collections I’ve ever read. 10/10 x 3 = 30/30.

That’s what I got. What do you have? I’d love to know.

…or you could just buy me a coffee, if you like.