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
From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection.​ Who is Andrea Bern? When...
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...
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...
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...
Chemistry : a novel
Wang, Weike
Paper Book
Named by The Washington Post as a Notable Work of Fiction in 2017 and by Entertainment Weekly as a Best Debut Novel of 2017 Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Ann Patchett on PBS NewsHour, Minnesota Public Radio, Maris Kreizman, and...
Eileen :
Moshfegh, Ottessa
Paper Book
Now a major motion picture streaming on Hulu, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize "Eileen is a remarkable piece of writing, always dark and surprising, sometimes ugly and occasionally hilarious. Its first...
Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction World Fantasy Awards Finalist From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a...
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...
Ghost wall
Moss, Sarah
Paper Book
A Southern Living Best New Book of Winter 2019; A Refinery29 Best Book of January 2019; A Most Anticipated Book of 2019 at The Week, Huffington Post, Nylon, and Lit Hub; An Indie Next Pick for January 2019 "Ghost Wall has...
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...
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 * "[An] exquisitely crafted tale...Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit, revealing layers of meaning as it plays with cause...
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
One of Literary Hub's Favorite Books of the Year A haunted, surreal debut novel about an otherworldly young woman, her father, and her lover that culminates in a shocking moment of betrayal--one that upends our understanding of power, predation, and agency. ...
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 unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatised by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and...
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...
All systems red /
Wells, Martha
Paper Book
All Systems Red is the first entry in Martha Wells' New York Times and USA Today bestselling, and Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction series, The Murderbot Diaries. Winner: 2018 Hugo Award Winner: 2018 Nebula Award Winner: 2018 Alex...
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;...
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 /
Le Guin, Ursula K.,
Paper Book
A placid and compassionate man discovers that he has extraordinary powers which could destroy the world.
Luster
Leilani, Raven
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book of the Year WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award...
Maurice :
Forster, E. M.
Paper Book
Set in the elegant Edwardian world of Cambridge undergraduate life, this story by a master novelist introduces us to Maurice Hall when he is fourteen. We follow him through public school and Cambridge, and into his father's firm. In a highly structured society, Maurice is a conventional young man...
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 /
Yoder, Rachel,
Paper Book
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 Yellowjackets exemplifies." --...
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 /
Garcâia Mâarquez, 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.
Pizza girl : a novel
Frazier, Jean Kyoung
Paper Book
LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST * An audacious and wryly funny coming-of-age story about a pregnant pizza delivery girl who becomes obsessed with one of her customers. Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our...
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
Toni Morrison's first novel,The Bluest Eye(1970), was acclaimed as the work of an important talent, written--as John Leonard said inThe New York Times--in a prose "so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry." Sulahas the same power, the same...
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
Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.
Weather : a novel
Offill, Jenny
Paper Book
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER  From the beloved author of the nationwide best seller Dept. of Speculation--one of the New York Times Book Review's Ten Best Books of the Year--a "darkly funny and urgent" (NPR) tour de force...
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-...

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