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
Paper Book
Grandpa and Noah are sitting on a bench in a square that gets smaller every day. The square is both strange and familiar, full of their lives' odds and ends. Here they share jokes, discuss their love of mathematics and Grandpa recalls falling in love with his wife, and how he dreads the day when he...
The sense of an ending
Barnes, Julian.
Paper Book
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011 Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more...
The uncommon reader
Bennett, Alan
Paper Book
'Oh Norman,' said the Queen, 'the prime minister doesn't seem to have read any Hardy. Perhaps you could find him one of our old paperbacks on his way out.' Had the dogs not taken exception to the strange van parked in the royal grounds, the Queen might never have learnt of the Westminster travelling...
A psalm for the wild-built
Chambers, Becky
Audiobook
Finna
Cipri, Nino
Ebook
"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©?
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 thedarkest thoughts of white folk. All across the nation they ride, spreading fear and violence among the vulnerable. Theyplan to bring hell to Earth. But...
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 vegetarian : a novel
Han, Kang
Paper Book
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more 'plant-like' existence, decides to become a vegetarian,...
Every heart a doorway
McGuire, Seanan
Ebook
The strange library
Murakami, Haruki
Paper Book
Fully illustrated and beautifully designed, this is a unique and wonderfully creepy tale that is sure to delight Murakami fans. 'All I did was go to the library to borrow some books'. On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library<...
Convenience store woman
Murata, Sayaka
Paper Book
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
Paper Book
Admired by critics, adored by readers, Dept. of Speculation is an annihilating, electrifying account of marriage and motherhood, love and madness.
The Buddha in the attic
Otsuka, Julie
Paper Book
After the First World War, a group of young women is brought by boat from Japan to San Francisco. They are picture brides, promised the American Dream, clutching photographs of the husbands they have yet to meet, imagining uncertain futures on unknown shores. Struggling to master a new...
Grief is the thing with feathers : a novel
Porter, Max
Paper Book
Shortlisted for The Goldsmiths Prize 2015Longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award 2015'Dazzlingly good . . . Anyone who has ever loved someone, or lost someone, or both, will be gripped by it. It's very sad and very funny.' Robert Macfarlane'In this slyly funny and thrillingly original work, Max...
My name is Lucy Barton : a novel
Strout, Elizabeth
Paper Book
A mother comes to visit her daughter in hospital after having not seen her in many years. Her unexpected visit forces Lucy to confront her past, uncovering long-buried memories of a profoundly impoverished childhood; and her present, as the fa ade of her new life in New York begins to crumble,...

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