My brother and I hatched a scheme for a family book club to get my mom away from the TV a bit more after a really long year with a lot of medical recovery that left her too tired to read and got her unhealthily addicted to cable TV that just makes her anxious. She is doing much better now and we are enjoying the monthly lunches to chat about the books but the problem is this: she cannot for the life of her FINISH a book over 200 pages. Even if she likes it! She likes participating in the club so we are trying to keep page counts around there. (I also like this limit because it allows me plenty of time to read other books for my pleasure during the month.)
Thus far we have read:
– Purple Hibiscus (Adichie)
– The Stranger in the Woods (Finkel)
– The First Men in the Moon (Wells)
Our tastes vary and we are open to a lot of things but we typically DO NOT read horror, WWII related books (my mom used to be in a neighborhood ladies club and she got SO SICK of WWII historical fiction in France lol those ol’ buddies love that stuff), romances in general. Non-fiction is okay if it’s written in an interesting or more narrative way (see previous Finkel choice) rather than educational/informational but fiction definitely preferred.
Please help! Do you have any suggestions for us? I would say 150-200 pages is the sweet spot but if it’s 220 pages and just INCREDIBLE certainly throw your ideas at me lol. I looked at a list of top novellas for ideas but most of us read a lot of them since many are classics.
by darkblueshapes