I am looking for excellent, quick reads...

October 28, 2009 3:16 PM

What are some of your favorite novels under (or around) 150 pages?

I am breezing through Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" and would love some suggestions on other quick reads. What have you read in a sitting or two?

posted by ieatwords to writing & language (55 comments total)

It isn't a novel, but DeBeauvoir's "A Very Easy Death" is an excellent, one-sitting read.

Pynchon's "The Crying of Lot 49."

Joyce, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man."
posted by Lutoslawski at 3:20 PM on October 28

"I AM LEGEND" by Richard Matheson. The original novella is more interesting than the movie versions I've seen.
posted by kjccreates at 3:22 PM on October 28

William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow.
posted by susanvance at 3:26 PM on October 28

A Separate Peace. Though it runs a little longer than 150 pages. And most of Shakespeare's best plays are short.
posted by bearwife at 3:26 PM on October 28

Dostoyevsky's "Notes From The Underground" and Michael Chabon's "Gentlemen of the Road" both spring to mind. The latter is around 200 pages, but it's pretty breezy and has a few pictures.
posted by Nomiconic at 3:31 PM on October 28

Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov. The Turn of the Screw's pretty decent, too.
posted by Diablevert at 3:31 PM on October 28

Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.
posted by equalpants at 3:37 PM on October 28

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

The Queen becomes addicted to reading. Lovely.
posted by jonnyploy at 3:39 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]

Slaughterhouse-Five
posted by salvia at 3:42 PM on October 28

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (that edition is 144 pages).
posted by selton at 3:47 PM on October 28

The great Gatsby

Of Mice and Men

Grendel
posted by Think_Long at 3:48 PM on October 28

Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott

The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures, line segments (females) and regular polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble Square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. (wikipedia)

~100 pages
posted by laptolain at 3:55 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]

Alan Lightman's Einstein's Dreams, which is something of an homage to Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities.
posted by ecurtz at 3:57 PM on October 28

Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
posted by martinX's bellbottoms at 4:08 PM on October 28

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
posted by xammerboy at 4:14 PM on October 28

The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker.

The Age of Wire and String, Ben Marcus. It's not an easy read, but once you are comfortable with what it is, it's very satisfying one.
posted by holgate at 4:22 PM on October 28

Thomas Mann's The Transposed Heads - 128 pages.
posted by spasm at 4:23 PM on October 28

seconding Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine, and if you like it you can go on from there. Most of his novels are around 150 pages. Box of Matches is my favorite.
posted by farishta at 4:27 PM on October 28

Much of Wodehouse.
posted by IndigoJones at 4:30 PM on October 28

Seattle Public Library has a list called Short Classics
posted by kbuxton at 4:38 PM on October 28 [3 favorites]

Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
posted by Orinda at 4:52 PM on October 28

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey.
posted by telegraph at 4:56 PM on October 28

Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. Gorgeous book. None of her novels is very long, in fact, and they're all worth reading.

Books sold as, sometimes even written as, children's books are often around this length; for that matter, they're usually printed in bigger type and/or on smaller pages, so a 250-page children's book might be the same length as a 150-page 'grown-up' novel. Ursula LeGuin, Jan Mark, lots of other writers whose books are often sold as children's books are quick to read but contain plenty to think about.
posted by lapsangsouchong at 5:00 PM on October 28

Shopgirl by Steve Martin is under 150. It's short but it didn't feel like a quick read. I still liked it though.
posted by loulou718 at 5:03 PM on October 28

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.
posted by number9dream at 5:07 PM on October 28

On my shelves:
Ira Levin's 'The Stepford Wives', which the novel is based off. (I think this is the shortest of his books, but all of his are short, quick reads.)
Finney's 'The Circus of Dr Lao,' which is definitely a nibble of a book, and a bit surreal...but not as surreal as
Robbe-Grillet's 'In the Labyrinth,' which is almost exactly the length an experimental novel should be.
Additionally, 'The Magic Christian' by Terry Southern and Walter Tevis's 'The Man who Fell to Earth' are better, IMO, than their movie equivalents. (the latter is about 200 but both this book and Levin's writing are both very cinematic and smooth reads.)
posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 5:24 PM on October 28

Most of Vonnegut's books are short, I'd guess around 150 pages. They're quick to read and often have an effect similar to a mild dose of acid.

Also, Bellow, Seize the Day.
posted by lex mercatoria at 5:32 PM on October 28

The Postman Always Rings Twice
posted by hamsterdam at 5:37 PM on October 28

Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger
The Stranger - Albert Camus

and, it's not a novel, but one of the best things i've ever read in one sitting:

De Profundis - Oscar Wilde
posted by gursky at 5:47 PM on October 28

The Death of Ivan Ilyich - Leo Tolstoy
The Lost Weekend - Charles Jackson
Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

I'm pretty sure most of the Miss Marple books are 200 pages or less.
posted by elizardbits at 6:08 PM on October 28

My Happy Life by Lydia Millet, exactly 150 pages long. I've pressed this on many people, including my daughter, just to hear their take on it.
posted by Allee Katze at 6:22 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]

Stupeur et tremblements (Fear and Trembling) by Amélie Nothomb.
posted by brianogilvie at 6:40 PM on October 28

Dashiell Hammett only wrote five novels, all of which are (I think) some of the best written in the last century:

Red Harvest [1929; 216 pages]

The Dain Curse [1929; 231 pages]

The Maltese Falcon [1930; don't have it on me right now]

The Glass Key [1931; 214 pages]

The Thin Man [1933; 201 pages]

They're all awesome, but I think The Glass Key is the best of the lot. Hammett's style makes for easy reading: dry and spare. And they're detective novels (some of the best) so they're riveting enough to pull you through in a single sitting.

posted by koeselitz at 6:41 PM on October 28 [1 favorite]

The Great Gatsby
posted by gt2 at 7:36 PM on October 28

Bonjour Tristesse, Francois Sagan
Thomas Mann, Death in Venice
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 8:58 PM on October 28

You can take your pick of Albert Camus books: The Stranger, The Fall, The Plague all fall in that approximate page range. Camus' writing style lends itself to the very notion of the 'quick read.' The Devil In The Flesh by Raymond Radiguet is excellent and only 127 pages! I was also going to recommend Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, but that's actually 250 pages. I assure you, it is so good that it reads like something half that long. Finally, I definitely agree with koeselitz's Dashiell Hammett recommendations. Brilliant.
posted by Mael Oui at 10:06 PM on October 28

A few I can remember offhand that haven't been mentioned already:

Graham Greene - The End of the Affair (192 pages, but they go by fast -- YMMV of course). This stayed with me for a long time after I read it. It still remains high up on my all-time favorite novels list.

Evelyn Waugh - The Loved One (164 pages in the edition I have). Brideshead Revisited and A Handful of Dust seem to get the most recognition, but IMO this is a very good satire/dark comedy that stands on its own.

Rebecca West - The Return of the Soldier (90 pages in the edition I have). It's about a shell-shocked English officer who comes home from WW1, and the writing has a quiet intensity that fits the subject well, I think.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 10:35 PM on October 28

seconding Shopgirl. I also really like The Little Prince. Brokeback Mountain is also pretty good.
posted by bellbellbell at 10:59 PM on October 28

How Many Miles to Babylon? by Jennifer Johnston is just 160 pages. It's a beautiful story about loyalty, social & cultural differences, the futility of war . . . I'm in awe over her ability to fit so much detail in so few words.
posted by kbar1 at 11:39 PM on October 28

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark

Black Dogs, by Ian McEwan.
posted by altolinguistic at 3:25 AM on October 29

Is 224 pages too long? If not, then Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. Awesome.

The Granta Book of the American Long Story contains 11 great novellas. From Amazon: "this anthology includes "June Recital" by Eudora Welty; "The Long March" by William Styron; "Goodbye, Columbus" by Philip Roth; "A Long Day in November" by Ernest J. Gaines; "The Old Forest" by Peter Taylor; "The Age of Grief" by Jane Smiley; "I Lock My Door Upon Myself" by Joyce Carol Oates; and "Hey, Have You Got a Cig, the Time, the News, My Face?" by Barry Hannah."
posted by Ziggy500 at 3:49 AM on October 29

An Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett is quite good.

A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr is just excellent. It's one of my favorite novels. I've reread it several times since I first read it four years ago.
posted by OmieWise at 6:22 AM on October 29

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon comes in at 131 pages and is awesome.
posted by crLLC at 7:14 AM on October 29

Badenheim 1939
posted by MasonDixon at 7:45 AM on October 29

Yes! Many (all?) of Appelfeld's novels would fit in this category, and they are all good.
posted by OmieWise at 7:50 AM on October 29

If you like horror, The Cormorant by Stephen Gregory is a creepy little book. Only available via used bookstores, though.

I liked Clive Barker's The Hellbount Heart, the inspiration for the Hellraiser movies.
posted by Anephim at 8:42 AM on October 29

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson is also excellent, and weighs in at 160 pages. Here is a recent appreciation by Joyce Carol Oates in the NY Review.
posted by OmieWise at 10:42 AM on October 29

Another John Steinbeck: "Cannery Row".

Translated:
Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther".
"Candide" and "The Princesse de Cleves" are short too.
Banana Yoshimoto's "Kitchen".

Period pieces:
Elizabeth Taylor's "At Mrs Lippincote's" (224 pages) and many others of similar size.
Anita Loos' "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" is a hoot.
Bill Naughton's "Alfie", on which the movies are based.

More recently:
Bill Richardson's "Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast" is a light, enjoyable read. The same can be said for -
Nicholas Drayson's "A Guide to the Birds of East Africa"
posted by of strange foe at 12:12 PM on October 29

According to the founder of NaNoWriMo, both Brave New World and Generation X are around 50,000 words, which comes out to 120 pages.
posted by lunasol at 12:36 PM on October 29

I'm not sure of the page counts of most Richard Brautigan novels, but they are short. And good.
posted by snofoam at 1:31 PM on October 29

A few that I've read recently.

'Youth' by JM Coetzee
'Metamorphosis and other stories' by Kafka
'The Trial' by Kafka
'The Real Life of Sebastian Knight' by Nabokov
'New York Trilogy' by Paul Auster (three short books in one - all connected)
posted by SebastianKnight at 2:32 PM on October 29

Night - Elie Wiesel
posted by bobber at 5:10 PM on October 29

"The Clothes the Stood Up In" by Alan Bennett
posted by mandymanwasregistered at 7:16 PM on October 29

Pretty much everything by Helene Hanff would qualify. Her best-known book is 84 Charing Cross Road, a series of letters she (in NY) exchanged with a bookseller (in London) over twenty years.
posted by Georgina at 11:23 PM on October 31

Anything by Magnus Mills.
posted by chill at 5:10 AM on November 3