Read on Twitter
Having some difficulty concentrating on reading fiction, like others I’m sure. Short book recommendations please. A few suggestions below.
Convenience store woman by @sayakamurata A compulsive short read about a girl who has always known she is different. Poignantly weird.
Signs Preceding the end of the World by Yuri Herrera. This is a story about a border crossing, by a Mexican author (unlike American Dirt). He’s been compared to Cormac McCarthy for his sparse prose. I interviewed him for @NOReview a few years ago: https://www.neworleansreview.org/yuri-herrera/
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault. A beautiful novella about a postman who finds a break from the monotony of his postal rounds by stealing people’s mail, living their lives and corresponding with a stranger via haikus...
The Student by Anton Chekhov. It’s a very short story, masterfully told, where little happens but there is wonder and self-awareness and a strong feeling of interconnectedness. It was one of the stories Chekhov was most proud of. You can read it here. http://m.free-short-stories.org.uk/anton-chekhov-the-student.htm
If you haven’t read anything by Shirley Jackson, there’s a lot out there which is short and compelling, including The Haunting of Hill House and We have always lived in the castle. A good place to start is her short story The Lottery https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1948/06/26/the-lottery
So many of us resonated deeply with Sally Rooney’s Normal People and Conversations with Friends and wish we had a third novel to read. We don’t but we do have her short story Mr. Salary https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/mr-salary-a-short-story-by-sally-rooney-1.3016223
Haruki Murakami novels are long but so immersive I normally lose myself in them anyway, so this is a bit of a cheat, but South of the Border, West of the Sun is one of his storter novels at 213 pages (average reading time 3 hours 48 minutes). Mysterious and compulsive reading.
The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy. This was Tolstoy’s argument for sexual abstinence (he also encouraged abstaining from meat), but it doesn’t read like a moral lesson. Suspenseful and full of jealous rage and anxiety. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/689/689-h/689-h.htm
Tender is the Flesh by @AgusBazterrica (average reading time 3 hours and 11 minutes). A dystopian future where humans eat each other. This might hit a bit too close to home for many people right now, that’s why it’s essential reading.
Gogol is the original story by Jhumpa Lahiri which later threw to become The Namesake, one of my favourite books and what prompted me to read Russian literature. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/06/16/gogol
Lullaby by Leila Slimani (reading length: 3 hours and 21 minutes). A dark and twisted story about a family who find “the perfect nanny” to look after their children.
@carmenmmachado’s memoir In the Dream House is incredible (and I don’t normally read memoirs), as is her weird short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. You can read the first short story here https://granta.com/the-husband-stitch/
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut - this often appears in top lists eg Modern Library 100 best novels. It’s a short read (3 hours and 25 minutes) and I think the narrator’s reflections on time and the prose style provide comic relief and help provide perspective in sad times.
