The Best Short Novels or Novellas
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 พ.ย. 2022
- I've been really enjoying short books and novellas recently, so I thought it would be fun to collect some of my favorites in case you are in need of novella recommendations. I'll also cover some novellas I want to read in the future and the novellas you recommended. Expand for more information. 👇
Criteria 📋
Must be 200 pages or less
Should exist separately from short story collections or be differentiated from other stories/novellas in a collection
Further Viewing 🎥
The Pulitzer Controversy of 2012 (Featuring Train Dreams): • Do Book Prizes Owe Us ...
My Favorite Books of 2021: • The Best Books of 2021
My Favorite Books of 2022 (So Far): • The Best Books of 2022...
Titles I Have Read 📚
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
Now in November, Josephine Johnson
Train Dreams, Denis Johnson
Winter Love, Han Suyin
Zorrie, Laird Hunt
The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Stephen King
The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
The Gifts of the Body, Rebecca Brown
A Single Man, Christopher Isherwood
Elena Knows, Claudia Piñeiro (translated by Frances Riddle)
Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
Passing, Nella Larsen
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton Wilder
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
More From My TBR 📚📚
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
A Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean
Brickmakers, Selva Almada (translated by Annie McDermott)
Waiting for Eden, Elliot Ackerman
The Stranger, Albert Camus
Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata (translated by Edward G. Seidensticker)
The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder)
The Women of Brewster Place, Gloria Naylor
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea, Yukon Mishima (translated by John Nathan)
Breakfast on Pluto, Patrick McCabe
Franny, the Queen of Provincetown, John Preston
Olivia, Dorothy Strachey
A Boy’s Own Story, Edmund White
Cane, Jean Toomer
O Pioneers!, Willa Cather
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
From Commenters 📚📚📚
The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, Saad Z. Hossain
Recitatif, Toni Morrison
Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse (translated by Susan Bernotsky)
A Death in Venice, Thomas Mann
Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)
The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
The Murderbot Series, Martha Wells
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
A Month in the Country, J.L. Carr
The Dry Heart, Natalia Ginzburg (translated by Frances Fenaye)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Now in November, Josephine Johnson
The Wedding of Zein, Taleb Salih (translated by Denys Johnson-Davies)
To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers
Stone in a Landslide, Maria Barbal (translated by Laura McGloughlin)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy
The Moon is Down, John Steinbeck
Sula, Toni Morrison
The Grass Harp, Truman Capote
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I have been fighting a multi year reading slump. Small Things Like These broke the slump. It was gorgeous and a book that will stay with me for a long time. You and I tend not to have the same taste in books. I adore some books that are on your awful list and have aggressively disliked some on your best list. Small Things Like These and Beloved are two that we agree about. Thanks so much for the recommendation and for helping to break my terrible, horrible reading slump.
I’m so glad Small Things Like These did the trick. That must be a relief. I’m glad we at least have that book and Beloved in common! 😊
I was absolutely moved by Bartleby the scrivener! Would recommend
Thanks so much for making this. Lots of good things to add to the goodreads account 🙌🏻
I was truly waiting for a video like this. Thank you! Great suggestions! Best wishes from Merida México
Thank you so much! Best wishes from Missoula!
Great video Greg. I love short stories and novellas, this is perfect for me. Thanks!
How perfect!
Great list, Greg! Thanks for sharing 😘
Thank you for watching!
Oh wow, this is a bounty of great ideas for my TBR and also so many titles I've already loved.
Thank you!
Love your list!
Perhaps add THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE a classic by Stephen Crane. (146 pages)
Good suggestion--thanks!
What a great video, Greg! I was one of those people who thought I didn't like short stories or novellas, a notion that got turned around by Small Things Like These, thanks to in no small part you and Eric @ Lonesome Reader, who first put it on my radar. I have been on several short journeys since. I sometimes find myself reading longer works now and getting impatient with all the unnecessary words! 😂
I have read a lot of the titles on your list but appreciate learning about many I haven't. And a big shout-out to your commenters for their great recommendations. A couple that I enjoyed that I don’t think anybody else has mentioned: The Twilight World by Werner Herzog and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes.
Thanks, Greg and Greg's viewers!
Thank you as well! I’ve read Barnes’ book The Lemon Table but no others yet, and have never read anything by Herzog. I’m glad you have found ways into shorter fiction!
Superlative selection, Greg! I am sorry you missed my very favorite: Amongst Women by John McGahern, 185 pages (1991). Possibly also On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin, my paperback edition is 224 pages (1983). Be well and read a lot!
You talk about literature in such a beautiful way. I’m a new watched, very excited to read some of your recommendations :)
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that.
A Whole Life is wonderful. Very similar to Train Dreams except set in an Austrian mountain village. Agree with your assessment of Small Things and Foster - both gems. Thanks for so many great suggestions.
'Lenz' by Georg Buchner. 'Notes From Underground'' by Dostoevsky. 'Eugene Onegin' (a "novel in verse form") is just about 200 pages, as it is 8 chapters of 50 each, 14 line poems. All three of these are literary masterpieces.
Very much inspired by Small Things Like These and Zorrie, I set a goal of reading a novella for each month in 2022 and it’s been a wonderful and pleasurable reading goal for the year and I highly recommend it for someone looking for a practically failsafe goal for next year. I ended up using 150 pages as my cutoff though. Some that you mentioned were titles I covered and big warning for Morrison’s Recitatif DO NOT read the Zadie Smith forward first as it gives everything away and is basically the length of the story itself. It really should be an afterword!
Natasha Brown’s Assembly is a great one to add to the list, and some how I caught the wave last month and read Comfort Me with Apples, like so many others, and was completely blown away. Sy Montgomery has two nonfiction books on Hawks & Hummingbirds for those searching for something to fit Nonfiction November. A few people like Ann Patchett and Jesmyn Ward have published commencement speeches, which are great nonfiction ones as well. Many of the Annie Ernaux memoirs fit the criteria well too.
Thanks for the tip on Recitatif. I love your reading goal! That was probably very rewarding. I didn’t want to include nonfiction but you’ve made a strong case for the power of short nonfiction works. Annie Ernaux’s The Happening is powerful and slim as well.
I did the Shorty September challenge and completely relate to the novella-mood! Love love love a short, crisp novella. And I completely agree about A House om mango Street. What a fantastic book! My favorites from September are:
- The Pursuer by Julio Cortazar. He is a master of the short form, and the flow of the prose in this novella is amazing: like jazz, there's this beautiful rhythm to it that just fits with the mood of the story and the characters
- Gilgi by Irmgard Keun, a classic and an exploration of a young woman trying to live life on her own terms (in 1930's Germany...)
- The Stones Cry Out by Hikaru Okuizumi, which is a masterful exploration of trauma (tw for this book though, it deals with war and the death of a child)
Some other good ones I read earlier are I Call My Brothers by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, The Old Man Who Read Love Stories by Luis Sepúlveda, Silk by Alessandro Barrico, Emerald by Zhang Jie, Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and of course some queer classics: Olivia by Olivia (I think the real name of the author is known now), Alexis by Marguerite Yourcenar and Fleur Jaeggy
Plenty of the authors you mention have a lot of other short books published. I loved Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata, and I got The Season of Migrating North by Taleb Salih, which are both under 200 pages in my editions.
And now I'm off to add all the other suggestions in the comments to my TBR!
Agree about Shawshank. I want to read House on Mango Street. The Gifts of the Body sounds like something I would like. I’m hoping to get to Passing soon. Great list of novellas. 😊💙
Thank you! I hope you enjoy Passing.
I've never been a fan of short stories. I could never get into them. Until I read First Love by Ivan Turgenev 💕 What a brilliant read. I stayed up late at night wanting to read and find out the end of the story. The writing was simple but decedent and beautiful.
Thanks for the lists. I’m often looking for short books in November if I’m running short of my annual reading goal (50 books). I’m surprised that no one mentioned The Great Gatsby. I know it’s a love/hate thing - I love it. I spent last summer reading Steinbeck for the first time, as well as books about him, and was pleasantly surprised by it all. I really liked his short novels The Moon is Down, Tortilla Flat & Cannery Row. The Housekeeper and The Professor is one of my all-time favorite books. (The paperback has a beautiful cover.) And Toni M.'s God Help the Child is not to be missed.
My edition of Gatsby is 208 pages so I deemed it ineligible but looking online there seem to be versions that are under the page threshold. Interesting! I’ve definitely liked all the Steinbeck books I’ve read (Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Pearl, The Red Pony), but I never felt passionate about them. But I did read all of those in junior high and high school, so maybe I should give them another try as an adult. Housekeeper and the Professor is definitely high on my priority list!
@@SupposedlyFun I read The Pearl in high school and it left a very strongly positive memory. Re-read it recently -- after more years than I care to admit, but it's decades. Do revisit Steinbeck -- you will find it rewarding.
Didn't do a page count, but Breakfast at Tiffany's is not long -- but it is note-perfect. A wonderful read.
I like a lot of your choices, which I have also enjoyed, which makes me willing to try others you have recommended that I have yet to read. I just took a quick look at someone's 10 favourite novels video, and unfortunately his taste in reading is too lowbrow and sci-fi for my taste. So no recommendations there.
I interpret TBR as "to be read," so I recommend you do read that list. Especially Conrad. Heart of Darkness is certainly the masterpiece, but there are many short novels and novellas -- Outcast of the Islands is particularly affecting. And Henry James is a slog for a lot of readers (I love him, but I did some graduate work on him with a wonderful scholar) but he also has a number of short novels. Try The Aspern Papers or The Spoils of Poynton. Once you have encountered his style in brief -- there are LOADS of wonderful short stories -- it is easier to sink into his major work.
Missing on all lists is that lovely American story, The Red Badge of Courage.
I love a good novella! One of my favourite is Choke Box: A Fem-Noir by Christina Milletti. I don't want to say too much, but it is about a woman's post partum journey, strange events, and how she tries to make sense of it. Also recently read Wildlife by Richard Ford, and it's good. The Yellow Wallpaper is excellent, as is A River Runs through it, but it is definitely very different from the movie. Big Fish falls just outside the novella range at 209 pages, BUT like A River Runs Through it, I was fascinated by how it was interpreted into the movies that they became.
I loved Small Things like These so much one of my favourite books this year.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
My recommendations:
Any short story by Guy de Maupassant
The Notebook by Agota Kristof
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The End of Eddy by Edouard Louis
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Thank you for the recommendations.
Hey Greg. I just happened to see Penguin has published Little Clothbound Classics. I just saw Snow Country and some other Novellas given a beautiful treatment. I saw them at Blackwells. Other I’m sure will carry them or order for you They are very nice editions
i love this vid idea!! novellas are my fav!! obviously, train dreams is also high on my list and i'm a big fan of sweet days of discipline by fleur jaeggy. i'm not sure what the page count is but i def recommend it if you haven't read it
Thank you-I will look up Sweet Days of Discipline!
Small Things Like These is being adapted inyo a movie starring (or produced by) Cillian Murphy. i'm so so excited for this! Let the book conquer the world!!!
Fantastic list! I got a copy of Passing this year, I really need to finally read it! I think my favorite short work this year has been The Employees by Olga Ravn, very abstract though!
Brickmakers I would say do go in prepared for the lens being steeped in toxic masculinity throughout (as critique, not the author condoning it).
I hope you enjoy Passing when you get to it. Thanks for the warning re: Brickmakers.
Mary Katherine from "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" terrifies me. I still get the creeps thinking about her. I do love Shirley Jackson though. My introduction was "The Lottery" back in school and is still my favorite.
This was such a great video! I added many of these to my TBR. "The Grapes of Wrath" is one of my favorite books, but I am a fan of Steinbeck. And although I have a love/hate relationship with Jules Verne, I do recommend "From the Earth to the Moon". It's my second favorite Verne behind "An Antarctic Mystery".
Mary Katherine is a great character-another reason I think that novella is worth a revisit even if audiences are more attuned to the narrative tricks it employs. I’ve never read a Jules Verne story! Thanks for the recommendation.
Zorrie is on my radar - sounds right up my street!
One I love is Cynan Jones’ Stillicide. Originally written for radio and such a sparse, effective and scary imagining of our collective future.
That sounds fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation.
I really loved "Train Dreams" when I read it earlier this year, based on another one of your videos, so thank you for that. Hi novella "The Name of the World" is also interesting, though I do like "Train Dreams" better. thanks for the rec of "Zorrie". I hadn't heard of it, and I like every other Laird Hunt book I have read.
I know I already recommended this, but a great, single-sitting read novella that I really enjoyed was "Ms. Ice Sandwich" by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Louise Heal Kawai. Sits with you longer than it takes to read it, and is a real pleasure to read.
Denis Johnson was a tremendous writer. I’m so glad you enjoyed Train Dreams. I hope you love Zorrie as much as I did! I need to give Kawakami a try, so thank you for that recommendation.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe is the greatest novella ever written.
Cane, Oh Pioneers!, and The Moon is Down are all great. Id highly recommend The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick. The book contains two short stories written several years apart about the same character. Heartbreaking, but has something to say about survival if you look hard enough.
Thanks for the video.
I’ve been meaning to read Ozick and haven’t gotten to her yet. Thanks.
I would recommend "84 Charing Cross Road" by Helene Hanff." Excellent short story and classic movie.
240 pages. So there's that
So many books I love here. Adore shoet stories. I love Shirley Jackson's Short Stories, they are incredible. Hill House is definitely work a re-read
I feel like The Lottery would probably be the next work of hers I would try but a reread of Hill House is probably in order.
@@SupposedlyFun yes The Lottery is great, it's the last book in the collection. But I think it is so famous because it's so insidious in it's sinisterness which is kind of her thing, the secret evil (or unease) right below the polite veneer of society. I think the Lottery captures it well but somr of the others particularly The Daemon Lover and Just Like Mother Made It are my favourite.
Just read a compilation of Shirley Jackson’s short stories that includes “The Lottery “….so amazing! Stories like “Flower Garden” have stayed with me and were ahead of its time, in its commentary on racism
Thanks Honest Abe. I would suggest moving The Housekeeper and the Professor up on your to read sooner it’s a very good book. I found The Sailor that Fell from Grace With The Sea is powerful as well and I understand the issues with Mishima but it’s worth a read but maybe not a high priority. Cane is also very good. I was surprised by how many I’ve read on your list Zorrie is out standing As Well as We have always lived in the Castle.
I’m getting ready to start Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri translated by Jhumpa Lahiri 157 pages. P.s. thanks for listing all the books you mentioned it really helps as a reference to add to my TBR
I really liked Whereabouts when I read it so hopefully you will, too. Thank you for the feedback! I am definitely looking forward to Housekeeper and the Professor.
First...thank you for regularly submitting quality videos.
This is the video I have been waiting to engage.
Over the last four decades my experience has been (with most avid readers) one of contempt for novellas. Many I have conversed with see it as the lazy creator's waste dump. This is unfortunate.
Personally, I have a special veneration for the short story playground.
Admittedly I am literary glutton.
I really want (no mater the form) a work that is: high quality, non-pretentious, sustainable and compelling. Something that makes a generous donation against folly. A work that stirs emotion and fuels growth. DIvertissement, for me, is a minor objective.
It is what you do with what you got....not size.
Peace
I definitely appreciate it when an author is able to do a lot with a small page count. There is great skill in creating a powerful story with economy and precision. It can be a very different approach to storytelling but it is no less affecting (to me).
I have never liked short stories or novellas. I tend to love novels of longer lengths. However, I have read some of the selections you mentioned and enjoyed them. I would like to hear more of your thoughts about why you like the short books and novellas. I put down the names of the books you mentioned and will try them.
What a smörgåsbord of tasty and interesting treats you have set beore us today. I have read O f Mice and Men twice and never realised that it was a short story. Again, you have given me food for thought and I shall have to reach for my saviour, St Blackwell to satisfy my craving. I do have suggestion of my own that is The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett. A little gem of a book that has a lovely story that has stayed with me for many a year.
Thank you for the recommendation-I will look it up!
I ditto both of these
I love short novels, because they are not daunting and they allow you to move on to the next one quickly, because there are so many things I can't wait to read. At the same time, short novels rarely (or never) feel satisfying to me. Take Pedro Páramo for example. It's considered one of the greatest of all time, but to me it felt extremely lackluster and unsatisfying. A perfect example of how the brevity of a novel stops it from becoming what it could've been and it's a damn shame.
Did you end up reading The Awakening? I just found your channel. Love this list and added quite a few to my TBR. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is amazing! Also, have you read Boulder by Eva Balaster?
I love Toni Morrison, but Bluest Eye is my least favorite of the ones I've read from her. Really want to read Shawshank. Love Animal Farm, Passing, and Giovanni's Room! Oh yeah the Stranger! That's a favorite of mine- read it THREE TIMES in school. The Awakening is pretty tame for a modern audience so it didn't really do much for me. I haven't gotten to read Recitatif yet but I will as soon as I can get it!
I love The Death of Ivan Ilyich as well as A Death in Venice. The Awakening was one of the most formative books of my life.
I really need to get to The Awakening!
Lots of great books on your lists.
Thank you!
I would recommend Ian McEwan's dark, creepy short works: The Comfort of Strangers or Amsterdam. And it's been 40 years since I read it, but I remember enjoying John Cheever's Oh, What a Paradise It Seems.
I just came across this video this morning. Last year I read an excellent Montana based novella that deserves more recognition, “Montana, 1948” by Larry Watson. Since you enjoyed and recommended “Train Dreams”, I think you will also enjoy this novella. A few years ago, Jason of Old Blue’s Chapter and Verse recommended it on his channel. I came across it at a library book sale and I am so glad I read it. It was the winner of the Milkweed Prize for Fiction.
[Side Note: Kate Chopin’s super short story, “The Story of an Hour” is a remarkable piece of writing. It’s only about two pages long and she takes the reader on an emotional roller-coaster with unexpected turns and viewpoint shifts. As Claire Keegan does, Chopin makes very efficient use of her prose. For me “The Story of an Hour” was more satisfying and thought provoking than “The Awakening.”]
Montana, 1948 has been on my list of things to get to! Thanks for bringing it back to the top.
Heart of Darkness is really racist. I found it really, really hard to get through. As a heads up.
Cane is so, so good! It is short stories rather than one continuing story though.
I went on a Willa Cather kick last summer and read a bunch of her work. O Pioneers was my favourite! One of Ours is interesting, I especially loved the discussion around it as a war novel. There was a lot of push back at the time of it bring pro-war by Hemingway and others but I think they missed the point. It is a very clear critique. It's one of those books I didn't love reading but researching it and the conversation around it is fascinating
Well, it sounds like One of Ours will be PERFECT for a Pulitzer Deep Dive, then! 😀
I forgot that Cane plays with form so depending who you talk to, it could be a long poem, a story collection, or a novella. Oops!
The feedback on Heart of Darkness has been VERY negative, so that’s definitely going down the priority list.
I’m hoping to film my shorties recommendations Sunday and we have some books in common.
Depends on who you ask about Cane. Is it a novella or a collection of short stories, poems, & play or a series of vignettes? The themes are interconnected and Toomer wrote it as an experimental piece.
And, when you do read Heart of Darkness know that it is SUPER problematic (i.e. racist w/ a capital R). I definitely recommend you follow it with Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe which was written in response to Conrad and other Western writers depiction of Africa, Africans, & African culture. And I also recommend his essay Out if Africa, which IMHO a scathing takedown of Conrad and Heart of Darkness.
I can’t wait to see your list! THANK YOU for the heads up re: Heart of Darkness. I’d heard that it was problematic but I didn’t realize it was that hardcore. And thanks for the added context for Cane.
I loved The Grapes of Wrath, though I didn’t think I would. I would encourage you to read it.
I'm hoping to read it soon!
My father read Grapes of Wrath every year. He borrowed my copy. Every year I told him to keep, but he always put it very carefully on my book shelf.
Thought of another one for you/ for your Toni Morrison pile: GOD HELP THE CHILD. I'm reading it now, myself: under 200 pgs😘😘📚
Someone else mentioned God Help the Child as well-thank you for adding it! I’ll have to look for it as I explore more Morrison.
I love HG Wells for short SC-FI, other favourites are Demian by Hermon Hesse, The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo, Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones, We had to remove this post by Hanna Bervoets, Sardonicus by Ray Russell, The Hound of Baskerville, and The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett all great I’m currently reading Claire Keegan Small things like These and Marghanita Laski The Victorian Chaise-Longue and hopefully they are just as good
Thank you for all the recommendations!
Also, I hope you read The Yellow Wallpaper! I would love to hear what you think. If you have a video on it please let me know the title. 😊
Penguin has a series of novellas-it’s a long list-it may have been taken over by another publisher. All of the works are by classic writers,some French,etc. very much enjoyed the video. Could you please pass on info on lgbt books in translation group? Also really want to read through the Pulitzer. I’m crazy about book lists.
You can find the most recent picks (and a link to the Discord server) here: th-cam.com/video/qg9wb4dkaNk/w-d-xo.html
great video.
Thanks!
I need to get to The Awakening and I have a copy, so I have no excuses.
I know the feeling. 😉
My personal recommendation would be 'The Search Warrant' by the French novelist Patrick Modiano, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature. A short but devastating novel about the Holocaust and life in occupied France during WW2.
Did I zone out and miss 'The Great Gatsby' or 'The Old Man and the Sea'?
The Old Man and the Sea is in here as part of my TBR but my edition of Gatsby is 208 pages, which makes it too long.
@@SupposedlyFun Fair enough!
Books short and packed a punch:
1. Little fires everywhere by Celeste ng
2. My sister the serial killer
3. Chinese Cinderella (might be a bit longer)
4. Animal farm and 1984 (need to check the page count)
5. The velveteen rabbit
6. Paper Menagerie
7. Island of missing trees (not the shortest but not the longest either - pace and chapters move decently swiftly)
8. Ministry of Moral Panic
9. Born a crime (found this incredibly fun to get through)
Thanks!
Thank you so much!
Heart of Darkness & The Stranger were part of my A level English literature syllabus in 1982. I’m son had to study Of Mice and Men in 2003.
I was only ever assigned Of Mice and Men.
Heart of Darkness was required for both my Modern British Lit class and a class focused solely on Africa called "Heart of Darkness" in 2002. I disliked it both times. lol
How did I miss your request for favorite novellas? I agree with lots of yours and also have many that are just over 200 pages including (to my surprise) Red at the Bone. My choices: Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss, The Many by Wyl Menmuir, 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri, Stillicide by Cynan Jones, West by Carys Davies.
High school view: Heart of Darkness is a short novel that reads like it is 800 pages long. Oh, the pain of reading it in high school! Perhaps I’d feel differently if I were to read it now, but that is not going to happen. Life is too short. (snort)
I will give you Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and I’ll take The Body every day and twice on Sunday. It’s a masterpiece. 😉
A great video. This is my wheelhouse! I have a lot to go back and research and add to my list.
I would love to hear more if you have them! I haven’t actually read The Body yet. I should do that. The feedback on Heart of Darkness has been VICIOUS and I hadn’t realized it’s so problematic. I forgot Fever Dream somehow! 84 Charing Cross Road is one I need to get to for sure.
@@SupposedlyFun 😂😂😂 Can’t remember if Heart of Darkness was problematic or even if I would have recognized it as such at that age. But for certain, it was B - O - R - I - N - G! (Apologies to the folks who love or like this book.) It’s sort of the basis for Apocalypse Now, which I saw and enjoyed much later in life. I read some of the other comments about how racist the book is. Definitely not something I picked up on or was taught while we were reading the book in the late 70s. That says something about education and the times. This was in South Jersey, btw.
Of the books I named above,I would say The Many is my favorite. It was Booker longlisted in 2014 or 2015. Salt are such a fantastic publisher!
If you give me 10 more pages, I’d have a bunch more recommendations for you. LOL
Foster ( by Claire Keegan) has been adapted into an Irish language short film called The Quiet Girl and is tipped for Oscar nomination.
Did The Ballad of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, not meet the 200 page mark?
I believe Ballad of Lucy Gault was over 200 pages.
I feel that your 200 page limit is illogical for the single reason is that books are published with a wide range for the number of words per page. The number of words should really be the limit. The number of pages is a purely a mathematical result of the physical printing process.
Good afternoon. I am surprised that you didn't include any of the books of Annie Ernaux.
It’s funny that I ended up thinking of her as a nonfiction writer almost exclusively somehow, and I didn’t want to mix in any nonfiction. Oops!
@@SupposedlyFun Her books are mostly nonfiction.
But the fiction ones look like they fit this category! I’ll have to look more closely.
You should read when we met by Rahul kabeer.
The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway; Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck; Giovanni's Room by Baldwin; Snow Country by Kawabata; Too Loud a Solitude by Hrabal. The Yellow Wallpaper? Hated it!
Thanks for the feedback!
Franny & Zooey, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour- an Introduction by J D Salinger; Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut; The Prime of Miss Jane Brody and Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark; Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka...and there's no way Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea is over 200 pages, my Vintage paperback is 112 pages.
the heart of darkness might be a short novel but it feels like you're reading 300-400 page book, cause the text is very descriptive
Animal Farm, in a sense, is a shorter, better written, and more effective construct of 1984. Just reread it for the first time in over half a decade. One of my perennial favourites.
I liked this video. Lots of good books, some I’ve read and some which are on my TBR.
Some recommendations that meet your criteria.
The Lost Daughter - Elena Ferrante translated by Ann Goldstein
A Girl returned - Donatella Di Pietrantonio tranls by Ann Goldstein
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
Potiki - Patricia Grace
What Willow says - Lyn Buckle
Thank you for the recommendations! I’ve been meaning to try Garner and I wanted to read The Lost Daughter after seeing the movie, and then forgot-so thanks for bringing it back. 😊
Thnxw buddy luv from panjab 🪯
Thank you!
Why can’t I see the video?
Not sure--it's working for me.
Hi! I’m new to your page & just watched this vid. I want to read many on your list, esp. Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams! I have to recommend my fav author Anton Chekhov. Obviously he’s famous for his short stories but also wrote at least 5 that in a fairly recent translation (by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) are called short novels-Anton Chekhov: The Complete Short Novels. But they’ve all been published as stand alone books & all are shorter than 200 pages. My favs are The Steppe (I wrote my master’s thesis on Chekhov, including The Steppe) & The Dual. The Steppe includes some of C’s most beautiful “nature” writing though it’s much much more than descriptions of pretty scenery. The Duel is probably C’s best satire-very funny in parts. I get more out of it each time I read it.
I also want to recommend a novella I haven’t read-Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, translated from the French by Jessica Moore. It’s the story of Aliocha, a Russian conscript on a trans-Siberian train with other soldiers headed for Vladivostok. He ends up deserting & befriends a French woman on the train who helps him. I know it got raves when it was issued here in the US in 2023 (originally published in France in 2012).
So thanks a lot for your reviews. I’ll keep watching. If you read my recs, I hope you enjoy them.
So obvio I should have listed all 5 of Chekhov’s short novels in the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. They are: The Steppe, The Duel, The Story of an Unknown Man, Three Years, and My Life.