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 grown up
Attenberg, Jami
Paper Book
Andrea is a single, childless 39-year-old woman who tries to navigate family, sexuality, friendships and a career she never wanted, but battles with thoughts and desires that few people would want to face up to. Told in gut-wrenchingly honest language that shimmers with rage and intimacy, All Grown...
Red at the bone
Woodson, Jacqueline
Paper Book
THE TIMES '100 BEST SUMMER READS' NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2020 'Sublime' Candice Carty-Williams'An epic in miniature'...
Lie with me : a novel
Besson, Philippe
Paper Book
Just outside a hotel in Bordeaux, Philippe, a famous writer, chances upon a young man who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back to Philippe's teenage years, to a winter morning in 1984, a small French high school, and a carefully timed encounter between two...
Delphi : a novel
Pollard, Clare
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...
Eileen
Moshfegh, Ottessa
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 MAN BOOKER PRIZE Fully lives up to the hype. A taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven's wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish and compelling. - Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, The Times The...
Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE 2021 WINNER OF THE KITSCHIES' 2021 SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE THE TIMES,...
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 end we start from
Hunter, Megan
Paper Book
"I'll be recommending this book for years to come. Utterly brilliant, hugely important. Here's the thing: it's perfect." Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall"Extraordinary ... reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road" Financial TimesThe mainland is on fire, they say in so many words. After...
This is how you lose the time war
El-Mohtar, Amal
Paper Book
WINNER OF Hugo Award for Best Novella Nebula Award for Best Novella Reddit Stabby Award for Best Novella British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novella SHORTLISTED FOR 2020 Theodore Sturgeon...
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 : a novel
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 <...
The friend
Nunez, Sigrid
Paper Book
A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog - NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NAOMI WATTS ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST 100 BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY WINNER OF THE 2018 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD ...
All systems red
Wells, Martha
Audiobook
All Systems Red is the first tense science fiction adventure novella in Martha Wells' series The Murderbot Diaries. For fans of Westworld and Ex Machina. All Systems Red by Martha Wells begins The Murderbot Diaries, a new science fiction action and adventure series that tackles questions of the...
The incendiaries
Kwon, R. O.
Paper Book
A psalm for the wild-built
Chambers, Becky
Audiobook
A Christmas carol
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
A beautiful edition of the timeless Christmas classic, illustrated by Sir Quentin Blake. Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean-spirited miser, is visited by three ghosts one Christmas Eve. The ghosts show Scrooge the true value of Christmas: charity, good humour and love for his fellow man. Quentin...
Luster
Leilani, Raven
Paper Book
Razor sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize 2021Longlisted for the Women's Prize For Fiction 2021The Sunday Times Bestseller'A book of pure fineness,...
Maurice
Forster, E. M.
Paper Book
Completed in 1914, Maurice remained unpublished until after Forster's death. Although its homosexual content was the reason for this, the novel cannot be defined simply by its theme. It was written by a great novelist at the height of his powers, as those who read it will surely discover.
Mouth to mouth : a novel
Wilson, Antoine
Paper Book
In the great tradition of morally murky narrators such as those in Gone Girl, The White Tiger or The Talented Mr Ripley, comes a compelling, one-sitting literary thriller of imposters and Faustian bargains, in which a man pulls another man from the rough surf...and then wishes he'd just let him...
Nightbitch
Yoder, Rachel
Paper Book
*NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING AMY ADAMS* Are you looking for a book with bite? 'OUTRAGEOUS, SMART, FUN' Bonnie Garmus, Sunday Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry 'BRILLIANT' Stylist One day,...
No one is talking about this
Lockwood, Patricia
Paper Book
'Patricia Lockwood is the voice of a generation' Namita Gokhale 'A masterpiece' Guardian 'I really admire and love this book' Sally Rooney 'An intellectual and emotional rollercoaster' Daily Mail 'I can't remember the...
The ocean at the end of the lane
Gaiman, Neil
Paper Book
THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 'BOOK OF THE YEAR' AN ACCLAIMED WEST END THEATRE PRODUCTION ***** 'Neil Gaiman's entire body of work is a feat of elegant sorcery. He writes with such assurance and originality that the reader has no choice but to surrender to a...
The passion
Winterson, Jeanette
Paper Book
'A fantasy, a vivid dream...inventive and brilliant' Guardian Henri has a passion for Napoleon - but Napoleon has a passion for chicken. As soldier and emperor butcher their way across Europe, glory falls to ruin and love turns to hate. But, when...
Pizza girl : a novel
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
Audiobook
In America, demons wear white hoods. In 1915, The Birth of a Nation casts a spell across America, swelling the Klan's ranks and drinking deep from the darkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the...
The swimmers
Otsuka, Julie
Paper Book
From the internationally bestselling author of The Buddha in the Attic Up above there are wildfires, smog alerts, epic droughts, paper jams, teachers' strikes, insurrections, revolutions, record-breaking summers of unendurable heat, but down below, at the pool, it is always a...
Their eyes were watching God
Hurston, Zora Neale
Paper Book
ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 'This novel is a packet of surprises as we have no idea what's going to happen next' GUARDIAN 'One of the greatest writers of our time' TONI MORRISON 'Devilishly funny and academically...
To be taught, if fortunate
Chambers, Becky
Paper Book
Adriane is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds, and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind, and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on...
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.
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
Jean Rhys's late, literary masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea was inspired by Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s. Born into an oppressive, colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to...
Every heart a doorway
McGuire, Seanan
Ebook

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