Short & Sweet: Fiction Under 150 Pages

Looking for a great quick read? These books pack a punch in under 150 pages!

Updated April 7, 2026
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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...
And this is how to stay alive
Kagunda, Shingai
Paper Book
In & This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, Nyokabi's world unravels after her brother Baraka's death by suicide. When an eccentric auntie gives Nyokabi a potion that sends her back in time to when Baraka was still alive, it becomes her only goal to keep him that way. Nyokabi...
Animal farm : a fairy story
Orwell, George
Paper Book
A special large-format edition of George Orwell's classic, illustrated in full color by legendary gonzo artist Ralph Steadman "Orwell saw, to his credit, that the act of falsifying reality is only secondarily a way of changing perceptions. It is, above all, a way of asserting power."--The...
Annie John
Kincaid, Jamaica
Paper Book
"Annie John "is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. A classic coming-of-age story in the tradition of "The Catcher in the Rye "and "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, "Kincaid's novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the...
Automatic noodle
Newitz, Annalee
Paper Book
A cozy near-future novella about a crew of leftover robots opening their very own noodle shop, from acclaimed sci-fi author Annalee Newitz. An instant USA Today and indie bestseller! Indie Next pick | Library Reads pick | Best of the Year at...
The book of denial
Cha?vez Castan?eda, Ricardo; Magallanes, Alejandro; Schimel, Lawrence
Paper Book
From award-winning Mexican author Ricardo Chávez Castañeda and the visionary Mexican designer Alejandro Magallanes comes a horror story and ghost story that is both daringly and beautifully told in word and image. There are stories so terrible that we tremble to hear even a...
Border districts
Murnane, Gerald
Paper Book
A bittersweet farewell to the world and the word by the Australian master "The mind is a place best viewed from borderlands . . ." Border Districts, purportedly the Australian master Gerald Murnane's final work of fiction, is a hypnotic, precise, and self...
Christmas at the women's hotel : a Biedermeier story
Lavery, Daniel M.
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author Daniel M. Lavery returns to the world of Women's Hotel in this delightful and heartwarming novella about one especially lively Christmastime at the Biedermeier. Christmas at the Biedermeier Hotel means work. For much of the year, employment...
Chronicle of a death foretold
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER * From the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes the gripping story of the murder of a young aristocrat that puts an entire society--not just a pair of murderers--on trial.  A man returns to the town where a baffling murder took place 27...
Collected novellas
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
Renowned as a master of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has long delighted readers around the world with his exquisitely crafted prose. Brimming with unforgettable characters and set in exotic locales, his fiction transports readers to a world that is at once fanciful, haunting, and real....
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...
Einstein's dreams
Lightman, Alan P
Paper Book
Now available:  New signed, boxed edition! An imaginary re-creation of Einstein's discovery of the nature of time, this novel takes us through the young patent clerk's many dreams depicting compelling conceptions of time.
Elevation
King, Stephen
Paper Book
From legendary master storyteller Stephen King, a riveting story about "an ordinary man in an extraordinary condition rising above hatred" (The Washington Post) and bringing the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine together--a "joyful, uplifting" (Entertainment Weekly) tale...
Every heart a doorway
McGuire, Seanan
Paper Book
Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but...
Feathers
Woodson, Jacqueline
Paper Book
View our feature on Jacqueline Woodson's Feathers. "Hope is the thing with feathers" starts the poem Frannie is reading in school. Frannie hasn't thought much about hope. There are so many other things to think about. Each day, her friend Samantha seems a bit more "holy."...
The first part last
Johnson, Angela
Paper Book
This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom's room and have her do the whole thing. It's not going to happen.... Bobby is your classic urban teenaged boy -- impulsive, eager,...
Four past midnight
King, Stephen
Paper Book
Four Times Fear Equals Total Terror.... THE LANGOLIERS You are strapped in an airplane seat on a flight beyond hell. SECRET WINDOW, SECRET GARDEN You are trapped in the demonic depths of a writer’s worst nightmare. THE LIBRARY POLICEMAN...
Hatchet
Paulsen, Gary
Paper Book
This award-winning contemporary classic is the survival story with which all others are compared--and a page-turning, heart-stopping adventure, recipient of the Newbery Honor. Hatchet has also been nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read....
Home
Morrison, Toni
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A New York Times Notable Book * From the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner: an emotional powerhouse of a novel about a modern Odysseus returning to a 1950s America mined with lethal pitfalls for an unwary Black man "Powerful. . . . Jaw-dropping in its beauty...
The house you pass on the way
Woodson, Jacqueline
Paper Book
A lyrical coming-of-age story from a three-time Newbery Honor winning author Thirteen-year-old Staggerlee used to be called Evangeline, but she took on a fiercer name. She's always been different--set apart by the tragic deaths of her grandparents in an anti-civil rights bombing,...
Idol, burning : a novel
Usami, Rin
Paper Book
"Akari's obsession is fatalistic and intense, and Usami's prose (translated by Asa Yoneda) renders it and the hold it has on her tenuous life ably and affectingly. . . . it will especially resonate with readers familiar with real-life superfandoms such as One Direction's at the height of its fame...
Lemon
Kwo?n, Yo?-so?n
Paper Book
New York Times Book Review: Editor's Choice  Philadelphia Inquirer: Best Book of the Month   World Literature Today: Notable Translation of the Year   CrimeReads: Best International Crime Novel of the Year Ms. Magazine:...
A long walk to water
Park, Linda Sue
Paper Book
Cherished by millions of readers, this #1 New York Times bestselling novel is a powerful tale of perseverance and hope. Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park interweaves the stories of two Sudanese children who overcome mortal dangers to improve their lives and the lives of others. A Long Walk...
Meeting with my brother : a novella
Yi, Mun-yo?l
Paper Book
Yi Mun-yol's Meeting with My Brother is narrated by a middle-aged South Korean professor, also named Yi, whose father abandoned his family and defected to the North at the outbreak of the Korean War. Many years later, despite having spent most of his life under a cloud of suspicion as the son...
The Meursault investigation
Daoud, Kamel
Paper Book
Best Translated Novel of the Decade - Lit Hub A New York Times Notable Book of 2015-Michiko Kakutani, The Top Books of 2015,New York Times-TIME MagazineTop Ten Books of 2015-Publishers WeeklyBest Books of the Year-Financial TimesBest Books of the...
Of mice and men
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression A Penguin Classic Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught novels....
The pearl
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
The classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love. Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once...
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;...
Sea prayer
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
An illustrated book on the refugee crisis that will break your heart in under 48 pages, from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed. "Intensely moving. . .Powerfully...
The skull : a Tyrolean folktale
Klassen, Jon
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller! A Kirkus Book Prize Finalist! A New York Times Best Children's Chapter Book the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Children's Book of the Year Caldecott Medalist and New York Times best-selling author...
The uncommon reader
Bennett, Alan
Paper Book
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....
Weetzie Bat
Block, Francesca Lia
Ebook
"Transcendent." --New York Times Book Review "Magnificent." --Village Voice "Sparkling." --Publishers Weekly Francesca Lia Block's dazzling debut novel, Weetzie Bat, is not only a genre-shattering, critically acclaimed gem, it's also widely recognized as a classic of young...

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