I'm part of a book club for people who don't have a lot of time to read, hence the request for less than 200 pages. I want books that have devastated you, given you new things to think about, marked you in any way, shape, or form.
Any genre, translated, classics. Anything goes.
We just want to have options for future meetings, as well as a pool of titles to pick from as a group.
by BiWaffleesss
22 Comments
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
This is how you lose the time way. Technically 209 pages according to Goodreads but many of the chapters are short so I feel it just about fits
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
*Siddhartha* by Hermann Hesse takes this one for me.
*Between the World and Me* by Ta-Nehisi Coates is another good one.
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
*I Who Have Never Known Men* by Jacqueline Harpman really made me pause. There were moments I had to just stop, stare at the wall, and process before I could keep reading. It’s the kind of book that would make for a great discussion.
*The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements* by Eric Hoffer.
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue (240pp)
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy is about 300 pages
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt (~230 pages)
Pretty sure the nickel boys is right around 200
Invisible cities by Calvino
Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, Women in Power, Hatchet. I’m sure I could think of a few more but those are a good place to start.
i have no mouth, and i must scream 😌 especially good as a well-done audiobook imo
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Rose/House by Arkady Martine
A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck
About a guy who believes that when he dies he’ll go to heaven, but instead he ends up in a version of hell that is a vast, seemingly endless library where the only way out is to find the story of your life.
I see you have read I Who Have Never Known Men and it gave me a somewhat similar feeling in the sense that they’re searching for something in a vast expanse that they know they may never find. That utterly hopeless feeling
fever dream by samanta schweblin
elect mr robinson for a better world by donald antrim
The Cossacks by Tolstoy.
Utz by Bruce Chatwin.
Apt Pupil by Stephen King
Sorry I think it’s around 250 pages.
This lived in my head for months afterwards.
Ai overview:
The story centers around Todd Bowden, an ambitious teenager, who discovers that his elderly neighbor, Arthur Denker, is actually the Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander.
Instead of turning Dussander in, Todd makes a sinister deal with him: Dussander will recount his horrific wartime experiences in exchange for Todd’s silence.
Peter Schlemiel: The Man Who Sold His Shadow by Adelbert von Chamisso – it’s quick, it’s brilliant, and it’s underrated.
The Murderbot Diaries