Little Books with Big Stories

So, like everyone else I know, I never seem to have enough time to read anymore. This is annoying for many reasons, primarily because it means that the “to be read” pile continues to grow on what feels like an exponential scale. But also because of my reading challenges – one external and one internal. The external (111 in ’11) says I need to read (duh) 111 books this year. The internal doesn’t have a specific requirement, but does require that I look at statistical comparisons month-by-month between this year and the past nearly ten years.

I know, I know – I’ve complained about the difficulties of reading time and reading challenges in here before. But I’m going to do it again. With a twist. The twist: this time not only am I complaining about the lack of time for numerous and lengthy books, but I’m also providing a nifty solution to the problem. That is, today I will tell you how I turned a sneaky-ish way of increasing my finished-book count into some really great finds.

Here’s how it started: angered over declining statistics, our fearless heroine (c’est moi) decided to turn to her favorite source of all things information. Yup, she turned to Google. And what did she Google, you might ask? Teehee – she Googled “best short novels” of course. Teehee indeed, eh? Traditionally, I do not enjoy short books or stories, so many of the recommendations that Google turned up were new to me. Since I don’t usually like the short stuff so good, I decided to check a few of them out from the local library (hooray for the library, she said!), which was another great thing that came out of my pathetic need to perform well in a stated challenge/test. 😉

I was pleasantly surprised to note how many of these very short books were worth more than their page-count would otherwise seem to indicate. Sure, a few of them suffered from my common complaint about short stories generally – the brief page/word count meant that occasionally the characters were not as fully developed as I would have liked, or the plot lines were relatively simple and/or twist-free. But a number of them really surprised me in a very good way.

So here you have it, some statistic-padding books for your own reading tally/challenge that I think you will enjoy not only for their brevity but also for their stories. Enjoy!

Top 10 Little Books with Big Stories

1. Reality and Dreams – Muriel Spark
2. The Man in the Picture – Susan Hill
3. The Prince – Machiavelli
4. The Screwtape Letters – C.S. Lewis
5. The Stranger – Albert Camus
6. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
7. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum
8. The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder
9. Pale Horse, Pale Rider – Katherine Anne Porter
10. Coraline – Neil Gaiman

*Note – this is not my favorite translation, but the older translations I prefer (which begin “Maman died today” rather than “Mother died today”) are all out of print/unavailable through Amazon, so I linked to this in the interest of new readers. But if you really want a faithful translation, check out your local library first! J-E