Hello everyone
I am really bad at reading but i do enjoy it. Recently ive been reading quite heavy non-fiction and I sometimes go weeks without picking the book up because i feel quite defeated by my slow reading abilities and lack of comprehension. I would like to read some short books and feel im achieving something.
What are your favorite books/stories under 100 pages (or just over)?
I looove short stories! These folks have some great collections of short stories!
Shirley Jackson (I imagine you can find most of hers for free online)
Daphne DuMaurier
Henry James
Kurt Vonnegut
Virginia Woolf
Stephen King
Animal Farm. Imo it’s the best book by Orwell.
I came here to say this. The short story with the most “depth” by far.
100%. So many projectionists like to pigeonhole it into cold war era fanfic when, in reality, it’s the best prose on the mechanisms by which power corrupts that I’ve read.
What I was going to say also
The Pearl by Steinbeck has 118 pages
The a series of unfortunate events books are quite short, and a beautiful story
I couldn’t agree more.
Does it have to be a hard copy?
If not, then how 'bout a short story that you can read online? A lot of magazines that publish this format have archives that you can browse whenever you’d like a quick read.
Here’s my favorite - The Island of Misfit Toys by Fiona Moore (fantasy/scifi/spec fic)
Or you can try getting something random. :)
Who moved my cheese?
Sounds like what you’re looking for are short stories.
I can recommend Tenth of December by George saunders. The stories vary between about 3 and 30 pages.
I loved Tenth of December so much. George Saunders is fantastic
Great book but it was very disturbing to me. Especially the yard ornament story
Chess story! One of my favorites ever
Every book is under 100 pages, you just might need a really small font and a magnifying glass to read it.
But to be serious, Heart of Darkness (77 pages). That is a dense book.
claire keegan writes short (and very good) novels
Some great short stories by Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Twain, Hemingway, Asimov, Vonnegut, Lovecraft, Raymond Carver, Jorge Luis Borges, Jose Saramago, Herman Melville, Anton Chekhov. Essays by Audre Lorde. Plays by Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard
I really like the adventures of Sherlock Holmes because each story within it can be independent and they’re very short! Also you can add them to goodreads as independent books which does wonders for my reading goal 🤭
Two suggestions…
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A River Runs Through It. Great short novel and the movie is well done also. Didn’t matter if you read or watch first, you’ll enjoy both
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The Tsar of Love and Techno. Book of stories be Anthony Marra. While each sorry story can stand completely independent, they also tore together in unique ways to form a bigger whole. Tough to describe but I’ve heard it compared to, and the author slides to, it being like experiencing a great album. Cannot recommend enough. And again, each sorry is short and stands on its own.
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Stephen King has a bunch of books divided into either short stores or longer novellas. So you can just read one or two then go back to it later.
Metamorphosis