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
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Award for Best Novella Winner of the Alex Award A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Now an Apple Original series from Academy Award nominees Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz and starring Emmy...
All grown up
Attenberg, Jami
Paper Book
A wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection.
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;...
Fox 8 : a story
Saunders, George
Paper Book
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a darkly comic short story about the unintended consequences unleashed by our quest to tame the natural world--featuring gorgeous black-and-white illustrations by Chelsea Cardinal. Fox 8 has...
Lie with me : a novel
Besson, Philippe
Paper Book
The Advocate's Best Gay Novel of 2019 A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice O, The Oprah Magazine's Best LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2019 The Wall Street Journal's Ten Books You'll Want to Read this...
The deep
Solomon, Rivers
Paper Book
ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2019 The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society--and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future in this brilliantly imaginative novella inspired by the Hugo Award...
Delphi
Pollard, Clare (Poet)
Paper Book
'Inviting, stylish and candid ... Pollard's future, as a novelist, is very bright indeed' The i 'Clever, warm, and funny' Sarah Moss, The Guardian 'This isn't the first - and most certainly won't be the last - pandemic novel, but it might...
Chemistry : a novel
Wang, Weike
Paper Book
PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER * WHITING AWARD WINNER * Smart, moving, and funny, a unique coming-of-age story about a quirky, overworked narrator who seems to be on the cusp of a perfect life but finds herself on a new path of discoveries about everything she thought she knew.  ...
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...
Eileen
Moshfegh, Ottessa, author.
Paper Book
"So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes...
To be taught, if fortunate
Chambers, Becky
Paper Book
National Bestseller! A Hugo and Locus Award Nominee! "Extraordinary . . . A future sci-fi masterwork in a new and welcome tradition." -- Joanne Harris, author if Chocolat A stand-alone science fiction novella from the award-winning, bestselling, critically-acclaimed author of...
The employees : a workplace novel of the 22nd century
Ravn, Olga
Paper Book
Now in paperback, The Employees chronicles the fate of the interstellar Six-Thousand Ship. The human and humanoid crew members complain about their daily tasks in a series of staff reports and memos. When the ship takes on a number of strange objects from the planet New Discovery, the crew becomes...
Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a dreamlike alternative reality. Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its...
Ghost wall
Moss, Sarah
Paper Book
A masterclass in the art of the short, unnerving novel; a story of forbidden borders, haunted landscapes and bodies in danger.
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...
The end we start from
Hunter, Megan
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JODIE COMER "Engrossing, compelling." -- Naomi Alderman, author of The Power "I was moved, terrified, uplifted - sometimes all three at once." -- Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl With a Pearl...
Convenience store woman
Murata, Sayaka
Paper Book
The English-language debut of an exciting young voice in international fiction, selling 660,000 copies in Japan alone, Convenience Store Woman is a bewitching portrayal of contemporary Japan through the eyes of a single woman who fits in to the rigidity of its work culture only too well<...
Follow me to ground
Rainsford, Sue
Paper Book
Literary debut by a young Irish star-in-the-making- 'Fierce, palpable, hypnotic. A dazzling troubling dream' COLIN BARRETT 'A tangled, gnarled, wonderfully original, strange, beautiful beast of a book' DAISY JOHNSON, author of Everything Under <...
Night of the mannequins
Jones, Stephen Graham
Paper Book
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones, comes a slasher story where a teen prank goes very wrong and all hell breaks loose in a small town. Winner of both the 2020 Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards! We...
The friend
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the dog he has left behind. While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the...
Even though I knew the end
Polk, C. L.
Paper Book
A USA Today Bestseller! Winner of the Nebula Award! Finalist for the Hugo Award! Finalist for the World Fantasy Award! A New York Times Best Romance of 2022! C. L. Polk turns their...
High times in the Low Parliament
Robson, Kelly (Science fiction writer)
Paper Book
Lana Baker is Aldgate's finest scribe, with a sharp pen and an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a result. As...
The incendiaries
Kwon, R. O.
Paper Book
Phoebe Lin and Will Kendall meet their first month at prestigious Edwards University. Phoebe is a glamorous girl who doesn't tell anyone she blames herself for her mother's recent death. Will is a misfit scholarship boy who transfers to Edwards from Bible college, waiting tables to get by. What he...
I who have never known men
Harpman, Jacqueline
Paper Book
Ursula K. LeGuin meets The Road in a post-apocalyptic modern classic of female friendship and intimacy. Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only...
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...
Infinite country : a novel
Engel, Patricia
Paper Book
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK AND INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE 2021 NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD, LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL, A 2022 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST, AND A NATIONAL...
A Christmas carol
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
The celebrated P.J. Lynch captures the spirit of Dickens's beloved tale in a richly illustrated unabridged edition. The story of Ebenezer Scrooge opens on a Christmas Eve as cold as Scrooge's own heart. That night, he receives three ghostly visitors: the terrifying spirits of...
The lathe of heaven : a novel
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paper Book
The Locus Award-winning science fiction novel by legendary author Ursula K. Le Guin, set in a world where one man's dreams rewrite the future. During a time racked by war and environmental catastrophe, George Orr discovers his dreams alter reality. George is compelled to receive...
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...
Luster
Leilani, Raven
Paper Book
'A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal-and brilliant.' Zadie SmithWINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2020LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021Meet Edie. Edie is not okay. She's messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all white office, is sleeping with all...
Maurice
Forster, E. M.
Paper Book
Maurice Hall is a young man who grows up confident in his privileged status and well aware of his role in society. Modest and generally conformist, he nevertheless finds himself increasingly attracted to his own sex. Through Clive, whom he encounters at Cambridge, and through Alec, the gamekeeper on...
Metropolitan stories : a novel
Coulson, Christine
Paper Book
A surreal love letter to this private side of The Met, METROPOLITAN STORIES unfolds in a series of amusing and poignant vignettes in which we discover larger-than-life characters, the downside of survival, and the powerful voices of the art itself. The result is a novel bursting with magic, humour,...
The monster of Elendhaven
Giesbrecht, Jennifer
Paper Book
A darkly compelling story of murder, a monster, and the magician who loves both. Set against the backdrop of the plague-ridden city of Elendhaven, clinging to the edge of the ocean and stripped of all hope, you'll find a tale of retribution, magic, and monstrosity.
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 : a novel
Yoder, Rachel
Paper Book
NOW 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. * "A must-read for anyone who can't get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that...
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
García Márquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera comes an extraordinary reading experience, the story of a doomed love affair between a twelve-year-old girl and a bookish priest, three times her age, who's been sent to oversee her exorcism.
The passion
Winterson, Jeanette
Paper Book
From the frozen Russia of Napoleon's campaign, to the canals of Venice, this novel journeys through curious waterways of war and chance, where destiny and the heart cannot be forgotten - nor passion which is to be found somewhere between fear and sex passion, somewhere between God and the Devil.
Pizza girl
Frazier, Jean Kyoung
Paper Book
Named a Vogue, Esquire, NPR, Marie Claire, and Refinery29 Best Book of the Year. Perfect for fans of Normal People and Fleabag Great inventiveness, unfailing intelligence and empathy, and best of all a rare and shimmering wit' Richard Ford Eighteen years old,...
Ring shout : or hunting Ku Kluxes in the end times
Clark, P. Djèlí
Paper Book
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns with Ring Shout, a dark fantasy historical novella that gives a supernatural twist to the Ku Klux Klan's reign of terror "A fantastical, brutal and thrilling triumph of the imagination...Clark's combination of...
Sula
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
Nominated for the National Book Award, this rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines-from their growing up in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation. The one, Nel Wright, chooses to remain in the...
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...
Tender is the flesh : a novel
Bazterrica, Agustina María
Paper Book
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans--though no one calls them that anymore. His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened...
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
Offill, Jenny
Paper Book
Where reasons end : a novel
Li, Yiyun
Paper Book
'Profoundly moving. An astonishing book, a true work of art' Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers 'A masterpiece. This book haunts me more than any other novel I've read in recent years' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You ...
Wide Sargasso Sea
Rhys, Jean
Paper Book
'There is no looking glass here and I don't know what I am like now... Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?' If Antoinette Cosway, a spirited Creole heiress, could have foreseen the terrible future that awaited her, she would not have...
The house on Mango Street
Cisneros, Sandra.
Paper Book
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago * Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world--from the winner of the...
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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