Open Books Challenge 2025: Books with Less Than 200 Pages

Updated December 31, 2024
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Pilgrim bell : poems
Akbar, Kaveh
Paper Book
Kaveh Akbar's exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf With formal virtuosity and ruthless precision, Kaveh Akbar's second collection takes its readers on a spiritual journey of disavowal, fiercely attendant to the presence of divinity...
The sense of an ending
Barnes, Julian.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most...
Deenie
Blume, Judy.
Paper Book
When Deenie finds out that she has scoliosis, she’s scared. When she sees the brace for the first time, she wants to scream. But the words won’t come out. And Deenie, beautiful Deenie, who everyone says should be a model, is stuck wearing a brace from her neck to her hips....
A psalm for the wild-built
Chambers, Becky
Paper Book
Winner of the Hugo Award! In A Psalm for the Wild-Built, bestselling Becky Chambers's delightful new Monk and Robot series, gives us hope for the future. It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools;...
Heart of darkness
Conrad, Joseph
Paper Book
A masterpiece of twentieth-century writing, Heart of Darkness exposes the tenuous fabric that holds "civilization" together and the brutal horror at the center of European colonialism. Conrad's crowning achievement recounts Marlow's physical and psychological journey deep into the heart of...
The front
Cornwell, Patricia Daniels.
Paper Book
How to keep house while drowning : a gentle approach to cleaning and organizing
Davis, KC
Paper Book
An NPR Best Book of 2022 USA TODAY Bestseller This revolutionary approach to cleaning and organizing helps free you from feeling ashamed or overwhelmed by a messy home. If you're struggling to stay on top of your to-do list, you probably...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott) 1896-1940
Paper Book
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald's family and from his lifelong publisher. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book...
The ocean at the end of the lane
Gaiman, Neil
Paper Book
A brilliantly imaginative and poignant fairy tale from the modern master of wonder and terror, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is Neil Gaiman's first new novel for adults since his #1 New York Times bestseller Anansi Boys. This bewitching and harrowing tale of mystery and survival, and...
Old Yeller
Gipson, Fred 1908-1973
Paper Book
A timeless American classic and one of the most beloved children's books ever written, Old Yeller is a Newbery Honor Book that explores the poignant and unforgettable bond between a boy and the stray dog who becomes his loyal friend. When his father sets out on a cattle drive toward Kansas...
Zorrie : a novel
Hunt, Laird
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award (Fiction) From prize-winning, acclaimed author Laird Hunt, a poignant novel about a woman searching for her place in the world and finding it in the daily rhythms of life in rural Indiana. "It was Indiana, it was...
The harpy
Hunter, Megan
Paper Book
Part revenge tale, part fairytale, The Harpy is an electrifying story of marriage, infidelity and power by the author of the #1 Indie Next Pick, The End We Start From, Megan Hunter Lucy and Jake live in a house by a field where the sun burns like a ball of fire. Lucy...
Tooth and claw
Johnson, Craig
Paper Book
In the tradition of Wait for Signs and The Highwayman, Craig Johnson is back with a short novel set in the Alaska tundra where a young Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear face off with powerful enemies who will do anything to get what they want. Tooth and Claw<...
In my time of dying : how I came face-to-face with the idea of an afterlife
Junger, Sebastian
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A near-fatal health emergency leads to this powerful reflection on death--and what might follow--by the bestselling author of Tribe and The Perfect Storm. For years as an award-winning war reporter, Sebastian Junger...
Tell me how it ends : an essay in forty questions
Luiselli, Valeria
Paper Book
"Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis--and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." --Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants...
Heart berries : a memoir
Mailhot, Terese Marie
Paper Book
A powerful, poetic memoir of an Indigenous woman's coming of age on the Seabird Island Band in the Pacific Northwest--this New York Times bestseller and Emma Watson Book Club pick is "an illuminating account of grief, abuse and the complex nature of the Native experience . . . at once raw...
Fever : a novel
Meyer, Deon
Paper Book
"Reminiscent of The Stand and The Passage . Great stuff." - Stephen King Nico Storm and his father, Willem, drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in the world, as far as they know, to have survived a devastating...
The short second life of Bree Tanner : an Eclipse novella
Meyer, Stephenie
Paper Book
Newly turned vampire Bree Tanner lives in terror -- and must find her way out of untold danger -- in this pulse-pounding novella, a companion to Eclipse. Bree Tanner, a self-described "vampire nerd" first introduced in Eclipse, lives in terror in a...
Sula
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
Toni Morrison's first novel,The Bluest Eye(1970), was acclaimed as the work of an important talent, written--as John Leonard said inThe New York Times--in a prose "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry." Sulahas the same power, the same...
Different for boys
Ness, Patrick 1971-
Paper Book
Friendship, masculinity, sex--Anthony Stevenson has a lot of questions. Is it different for boys who like boys? A poignant and frank story filled with meta-humor by renowned author Patrick Ness. Anthony "Ant" Stevenson isn't sure when he stopped being a virgin. Or even if he has....
The housekeeper and the professor
Ogawa, Yōko
Paper Book
Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family. He is a brilliant math professor with a peculiar problem--ever since a traumatic head injury, he...
The Buddha in the attic
Otsuka, Julie 1962-
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award Julie Otsuka's long awaited follow-up to When the Emperor Was Divine ("To watch Emperor catching on with teachers and students in vast numbers is to grasp what must have happened at the outset for novels like Lord...
My thoughts have wings
Smith, Maggie
Paper Book
Maggie Smith, bestselling author of the viral poem "Good Bones" and the memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, delivers a lyrical and reassuring picture book perfect for calming active minds at bedtime (or anytime). At bedtime, when lights go out...sometimes thoughts...
Poison for breakfast
Snicket, Lemony
Paper Book
In the years since this publishing house was founded, we have worked with an array of wondrous authors who have brought illuminating clarity to our bewildering world. Now, instead, we bring you Lemony Snicket. Over the course of his long and suspicious career, Mr. Snicket has investigated...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John 1902-1968
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression   They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the...
Darkness visible : a memoir of madness
Styron, William
Paper Book
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps the first...
Mysterious, marvelous octopus
Towler, Paige
Paper Book
Meet one of Earth's most incredible ocean animals in this lyrical, whimsical picture book uniquely layered with photographs, rhyming text, and fascinating facts about octopuses. This playful book introduces young readers to the fascinating world of octopuses big and small, ink...
An elderly lady is up to no good
Tursten, Helene 1954-
Paper Book
Maud is an irascible 88-year-old Swedish woman with no family, no friends, and... no qualms about a little murder. This funny, irreverent story collection by Helene Tursten, author of the Irene Huss investigations, features two-never-before translated stories that will keep you laughing all the...
The empress of salt and fortune
Vo, Nghi
Paper Book
Winner of the 2020 Crawford Award! Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award! A Hugo Award-Winning Series! A 2021 Locus Award Finalist A 2021 Ignyte Award Finalist A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist A Book Riot Best Debut Fantasy of All...
Night
Wiesel, Elie
CD
Wiesel's account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps, including a new preface is which he reflects on the enduring importance of Night and his lifelong, passionate dedication to ensuring that the world never forgets man's capacity for inhumanity to man.
Remember us
Woodson, Jacqueline
Paper Book
National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson brings readers a powerful story that delves deeply into life's burning questions about time and memory and what we take with us into the future. It seems like Sage's whole world is on fire the summer before she starts seventh grade....
Why not?
Yamada, Kobi
Paper Book

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