Achieve Your Reading Goal - Great Reads Under 250 Pages

Whether it was your goal to read 5 or 50 books this year, find some quick reads on this list to get you across the finish line.

Updated November 8, 2023
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All systems red
Wells, Martha.
Paper Book
All Systems Red is the first entry in Martha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling, and Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries. Winner: 2018 Hugo Award Winner: 2018 Nebula Award Winner: 2018 Alex...
Red at the bone
Woodson, Jacqueline
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR "A spectacular novel that only this legend can pull off." -Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of  HOW TO BE AN...
Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction World Fantasy Awards Finalist From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a...
This is how you lose the time war
El-Mohtar, Amal
Paper Book
HUGO AWARD WINNER: BEST NOVELLA NEBULA AND LOCUS AWARDS WINNER: BEST NOVELLA ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters--and fall in love...
The end we start from
Hunter, Megan
Paper Book
Longlisted for the 2018 Aspen Words Literary Prize Finalist for the Barnes & Noble 2017 Discover Great New Writers Award An indelible and elemental debut--a lyrical vision of the strangeness and beauty of new motherhood, and a tale of endurance in the face of...
The friend
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
An Award-winning AuthorWhen a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the dog he left behind. Now her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of a huge Great Dane, and by the threat of eviction. Increasingly obsessed with...
In an absent dream
McGuire, Seanan
Paper Book
Winner: 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series A stand-alone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire's Alex award-winning Wayward Children series, which began in the Alex, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award-winning, World Fantasy Award finalist, Tiptree Honor List Every...
A Christmas carol : in prose, being a ghost story of Christmas
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
The premier edition of this celebrated masterpiece. Decorated initials, tailpieces, and six full color plates by Trina Schart Hyman. Note on the text. Aimed at young readers who may not have someone around to read the original out loud. Mayer has retained much of the language of Dickens's work,...
Luster
Leilani, Raven
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award...
Mouth to mouth : a novel
Wilson, Antoine
Paper Book
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 * An NPR and Time Best Book of the Year * Longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize (Canada) * Finalist for CALIBA's 2022 Golden Poppy Awards A successful art dealer confesses the story of his meteoric rise in this "powerful,...
Nightbitch
Yoder, Rachel
Paper Book
SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING AMY ADAMS * In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something...
No one is talking about this
Lockwood, Patricia
Paper Book
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE    "A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving." --New York Times 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,...
Of love and other demons
Garca̕ Mr̀quez, Gabriel
Paper Book
Compelling and unforgettable, this remarkable, bittersweet story of a doomed love affair set in the colonial era demonstrates that one of the masters of the form is still working at the height of his powers (The New York Times). Amid the lush, coastal tropics of a South American seaport, an unruly,...
The swimmers
Otsuka, Julie
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE WINNER * From the award-winning author of The Buddha in the Attic and When the Emperor Was Divine comes a novel that "starts as a catalogue of spoken and unspoken rules for swimmers at an aquatic center but unfolds into a powerful...
Their eyes were watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale
Paper Book
A PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick "A deeply soulful novel that comprehends love and cruelty, and separates the big people from the small of heart, without ever losing sympathy for those unfortunates who don't know how to live properly." --Zadie Smith One of the most important...
Weather : a novel
Offill, Jenny
Paper Book
From the author of Dept. of Speculation, a dazzling and deadpan new novel about hope and despair, fear and comfort as it plays out in these times of environmental and political turbulence.
Every heart a doorway
McGuire, Seanan
Paper Book
Winner of the Hugo Award, Hugo Award for Best Series, Alex Award, Locus Award, and Nebula Award Nominated for the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, and Tiptree Honor List "A mini-masterpiece of portal fantasy -- a jewel of...

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