Short Books for Short Days

Fiction books under 200 pages to get you through the shortest days of the year.

Updated December 5, 2023
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And every morning the way home gets longer and longer : a novella
Backman, Fredrik
A little book with a big heart--from the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and Anxious People. "I read this beautifully imagined and moving novella in one sitting, utterly wowed, wanting to share it with everyone I know." --Lisa Genova,...
The sense of an ending
Barnes, Julian.
Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize and #1 international bestseller, The Sense of an Ending is a masterpiece. The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes's new novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of...
The uncommon reader
Bennett, Alan
From the author of The History Boys and The Clothes They Stood Up In   A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading. When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library  she feels duty bound to borrow a book....
A psalm for the wild-built
Chambers, Becky
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;...
Finna
Cipri, Nino
"A magical anti-capitalist adventure." --Annalee Newitz Nino Cipri's Finna is a rambunctious, touching story that blends all the horrors the multiverse has to offer with the everyday awfulness of low-wage work. It explores queer relationships and queer feelings, capitalism...
Ring shout
Clark, P. Dj©·l©?
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...
Upright women wanted
Gailey, Sarah
A 2021 Hugo Award Finalist! A 2021 Locus Award Finalist! A 2020 ALA Booklist Top 10 SF/F Pick! A Booklist Editor's Choice Pick! Book Riot's Best Books of 2020 So Far! Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR |...
The ocean at the end of the lane
Gaiman, Neil
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,...
The vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE * "[Han] Kang viscerally explores the limits of what a human brain and body can endure, and the strange beauty that can be found in even the most extreme forms of renunciation."--Entertainment Weekly "Ferocious."--The New...
Every heart a doorway
McGuire, Seanan
Winner: 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series Winner: 2017 Hugo Award Winner: 2017 Alex Award Winner: 2017 Locus Award Winner: 2016 Nebula Award Nominated: 2017 World Fantasy Award ...
The strange library
Murakami, Haruki
From internationally acclaimed author Haruki Murakami--a fantastical illustrated short novel about a boy imprisoned in a nightmarish library.   Opening the flaps on this unique little book, readers will find themselves immersed in the strange world of best-selling...
Convenience store woman
Murata, Sayaka
The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in...
Dept. of speculation
Offill, Jenny
Dept. of Speculation is a portrait of a marriage. It is also a beguiling rumination on the mysteries of intimacy, trust, faith, knowledge, and the condition of universal shipwreck that unites us all. Jenny Offill's heroine, referred to in these pages as simply "the wife," once exchanged...
Binti
Okorafor, Nnedi
"Prepare to fall in love with Binti." --Neil Gaiman Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novella! Her name is Binti, and she is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University, the finest institution of higher...
The Buddha in the attic
Otsuka, Julie
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...
Grief is the thing with feathers : a novel
Porter, Max
Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death. And there are his two sons who like him struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of...
The deep
Solomon, Rivers
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...
My name is Lucy Barton : a novel
Strout, Elizabeth
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the tender relationship between mother and daughter in this extraordinary novel by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive Kitteridge and The Burgess Boys. Soon to be a...
The past is red
Valente, Catherynne M.
"The Candide of our #@$\*%?! age."-- Ken Liu, award-winning author Catherynne M. Valente, the bestselling and award-winning creator of Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland returns with The Past Is Red, the enchanting, dark, funny,...
The empress of salt and fortune
Vo, Nghi
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...
All systems red
Wells, Martha
A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella Winner: 2018 Alex Award Winner: 2018 Locus Award One of the Verge's Best Books of 2017 A...

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