15 Short Books For Busy People | Penguin Random House

The best short books under 250 pages - Pan Macmillan

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

La Guía del Autoestopista Galáctico

50 Great Classic Novels Under 200 Pages ‹ Literary  Hub

A youthful Minnesota native, Nick Carraway, relocates to New York during the summer of 1922 to get involved in the bond business. He settles in a wealthy but uncool neighborhood in the West Egg region of Long Island. The area is home to nouveau riche—people who have recently amassed wealth and lack established societal ties. Nick’s enigmatic neighbor, Jay Gatsby, lives in an enormous Gothic mansion and is known for lavish parties every Saturday night.

Nick, unlike his West Egg counterparts, is Yale-educated and connected to the East Egg’s high society. One night, he visits his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, for dinner. Nick gets introduced to Jordan Baker, a striking, cynical woman, and they begin dating. He learns of Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the industrial wasteland between West Egg and New York City. Afterward, he attends a tawdry party in the city with Tom and Myrtle, where Tom breaks Myrtle's nose for mentioning Daisy.

As the summer unfolds, Nick is invited to one of Gatsby’s notorious parties. He meets Gatsby, a surprisingly young man with an English accent, a captivating smile, and a habit of calling everyone “old sport.” Gatsby confesses his love for Daisy to Jordan and reveals his extravagant lifestyle is merely a ploy to win her over. He wants Nick to set up a meeting with Daisy, fearing she might not agree if she knew about his feelings for her. Daisy and Gatsby reconnect and start an affair after an initially awkward encounter. Soon, Daisy's husband, Tom, becomes suspicious and confronts Gatsby in New York City. Tom scornfully sends Daisy and Gatsby back to East Egg after revealing Gatsby's criminal activities to Daisy. Not long after, Gatsby's car hits and kills Myrtle, and he decides to take the blame even though Daisy was driving. The next day, Myrtle's husband, George, shoots Gatsby and then himself, after Tom lets him know Gatsby was the driver. Disgusted by the moral decay amongst the wealthy, Nick breaks up with Jordan and returns to the Midwest. He believes that just like Gatsby's love for Daisy, the American dream of happiness and individualism has crumbled under the relentless pursuit of wealth.

The Great Gatsby

El Gran Gatsby

30 Best Short Books to Read in 2021 — Easy Books to Read in a Day

A stranded aviator, having crash-landed in the Sahara, finds unexpected companionship with a solemn, golden-haired boy who requests a sketch of a sheep. They bond, and the boy reveals he hails from a tiny asteroid he refers to as Asteroid 325, known on Earth as Asteroid B-612. He tells the aviator about the meticulous care he took of his home, ensuring it was never infested by baobab trees, and about a unique rose that bloomed on his planet, which he loved. The rose's dishonesty caused him to lose trust, leading him to feel isolated, and despite mending their relationship, he departed his home to explore other planets and alleviate his solitude.

On his journey, the boy visits several other asteroids, each inhabited by solitary adults engrossed in their pursuits. The boy is both entertained and puzzled by their behaviour, not comprehending their need for control, admiration, and possession. Except for the dutiful lamplighter, he does not find much value in his interactions with these adults, learning nothing beneficial. However, a geographer he meets makes him realize the transience of flowers, causing him to miss his rose.

Following the geographer's advice, the boy travels to Earth, landing in a barren desert. He encounters a cryptic snake offering to send him back to his asteroid through its lethal venom, which he declines. He converses with a three-petaled flower, ascends the highest mountain he finds, and discovers a garden of roses, which saddens him as his rose had claimed to be the only one of her kind. The boy befriends a fox who enlightens him about the significance of love and emotional bonds. Realizing his rose is special due to his love for her and his responsibility towards her, the boy still feels lonely due to their separation. On the eighth day of the aviator's desert ordeal, the two search for a well, and the water they find quenches not just their physical thirst but also their spiritual longing. Amidst their shared happiness, the boy decides to return to his rose, making arrangements with the snake. The aviator succeeds in fixing his plane just before the boy's departure and witnesses the snake bite him. The following day, the boy's missing body convinces the aviator that the boy has returned to his asteroid, finding solace in the sound of his friend's laughter in the stars. However, the aviator occasionally feels melancholy, worrying if the sheep he drew might have eaten the boy's rose. He invites his readers to pause under the stars if they are ever nearby, and inform him if the boy has returned.


The Little Prince

El Principito

African Trilogy, Book 1

Trilogía Africana, Libro 1

Okonkwo, a prominent warrior in a Nigerian tribal society, is tormented by the disgraceful legacy of his father Unoka, who died in shame leaving numerous unsettled debts. To counter his father's reputation, Okonkwo becomes an admired warrior and a proficient farmer, yet remains perpetually worried that his son, Nwoye, will follow in his grandfather's unsuccessful footsteps. Following a dispute with a neighboring tribe, Okonkwo takes responsibility for a fifteen-year-old boy, Ikemefuna, who he grows fond of and sees as an ideal son. Despite this, he never allows himself to openly display affection for the boy. Okonkwo also breaks tribe tradition during the sacred Week of Peace by brutally punishing his youngest wife, Ojiugo, for neglect, causing a severe stir within the community.

After three years, the Oracle decrees that Ikemefuna must be killed. Despite a private warning from respected elder, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, advising him not to partake in the boy's death due to Ikemefuna's regard of him as a father, Okonkwo participates in the killing to avoid appearing weak among his tribesmen. His guilt over the death of Ikemefuna, coupled with the accidental killing of Ogbuefi Ezeudu's son at the elder's funeral, sends Okonkwo and his family into a mandatory seven-year exile as atonement for his actions.

During Okonkwo's exile, missionaries arrive in his motherland of Mbanta, spreading Christianity and causing a significant shift in the beliefs of the tribe. Okonkwo's friend Obierika brings news of the disruption caused by the missionaries and supports Okonkwo by selling his yams and bringing him the profit. As Mr. Brown, the lenient missionary leader falls ill and is replaced by the strict Reverend Smith, tensions rise, climaxing in the burning of the church following a grave insult to the tribe's ancestral spirits. The leaders of Umuofia are subsequently arrested and abused, spurring Okonkwo to kill one of the court messengers. However, his clan is unwilling to go to war, leading Okonkwo to commit suicide, thus leaving his body untouchable by his clansmen due to cultural beliefs surrounding suicide.

Things Fall Apart

Todo se desmorona

50 Must-Read Short Books Under 250 Pages | Book Riot

A Novel

Una Novela

A university student from Massachusetts, Esther Greenwood, takes a trip to New York to work as a guest editor for a magazine. Her employer, Jay Cee, is a stern yet kind-hearted woman. Esther, along with eleven other female students, reside in a ladies' hostel, pampered with luxuries. However, she feels despondent and becomes concerned about the impending execution of the Rosenbergs. After a grand banquet leaves her and the other girls with food poisoning, Esther attempts to lose her virginity to a UN interpreter, only to be ignored. As her days in New York come to an end, she has a traumatic blind date with a man named Marco, who attempts to assault her.

Esther ponders upon her life choices, deciding between becoming a traditional housewife or fulfilling her own ambitions. Her beau Buddy Willard, a bright and good-looking man, is in a sanitarium for tuberculosis treatment and plans to marry Esther once he recovers. Despite his seemingly perfect attributes, Buddy fails to understand Esther's passion for writing and his infidelity makes her see him as a hypocrite, leading her to dismiss any thoughts of marrying him. She determines to lose her virginity as if seeking an answer to a crucial mystery.

On returning to her Boston home, Esther feels depressed after not getting into the writing class she had hoped to take, and her feelings of unreality intensify. Unable to read, write or sleep, Esther's mental health deteriorates and she falls into a suicidal spiral, making several unsuccessful attempts to take her own life. After her final attempt involving an overdose of sleeping pills, she wakes up in a hospital. Eventually, she is transferred to a private psychiatry ward sponsored by a famous novelist, Philomena Guinea. Here, under the care of a psychiatrist Dr. Nolan, she gradually starts to improve through a combination of therapy, insulin injections, and properly administered electric shock treatment. She develops a friendship with Joan, a woman from her college but is taken aback when Joan makes a sexual pass at her. Over time, Esther is permitted to leave the hospital occasionally. During one such outing, she loses her virginity to a math professor named Irwin. However, the experience leads to a medical scare, and she has to rush to the emergency room. When Joan commits suicide, Esther realizes her relationship with Buddy is over. As she prepares to leave the hospital and return to college for the winter semester, she knows her sanity hangs by a thread and the specter of insanity could return at any moment.

The Bell Jar

La Campana de Cristal

A Memoir

Una Memoria

Heart Berries

Bayas de Corazón

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Siempre hemos vivido en el castillo

The Awakening

El Despertar

Whereabouts

Paradero

The Vegetarian

El Vegetariano

Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole girl, lives a lonely and isolated life on her family's dilapidated Jamaican plantation, Coulibri Estate, in the early 19th century. The financial collapse and death of her father, a former slave owner, has led to a bitter tension between the impoverished white upper class and the newly freed Black population. After her mother, Annette, remarries a wealthy Englishman named Mr. Mason, their home is unintentionally set ablaze during a protest by the freed slaves. In the chaos, Antoinette is injured and her younger brother Pierre is fatally wounded. The trauma of the fire pushes Annette into madness and Antoinette is sent to live in a convent where she is largely forgotten by her family.

At seventeen, Mr. Mason arranges for Antoinette to be married to a nameless Englishman in need of money, offering a hefty dowry as incentive. The newlywed couple retreat to Granbois, an estate inherited by Antoinette, for their honeymoon. However, the husband grows increasingly wary of Antoinette and the exotic surroundings as he receives a letter revealing her family's history of insanity. Antoinette, sensing her husband's growing animosity, seeks the help of her confidante Christophine for a love potion. This leads to a heated confrontation between the couple that not only confirms the husband's suspicions of Antoinette's insanity, but also results in him having an affair with a servant girl, Amelie. 

The final part of the story sees Antoinette, now addressed as "Bertha" by her husband, in England, confined to a room in the attic of her husband's house under the care of Grace Poole. Having lost her sense of reality, Antoinette becomes increasingly unstable, even threatening her stepbrother with a knife during a visit. She continually dreams of setting the house on fire using Graces's keys and, one night, she wakes and decides to make the dream a reality. The narrative concludes with Antoinette, holding a lit candle, making her way down from her upstairs prison.

Wide Sargasso Sea

Ancho Mar de los Sargazos

Notes on Grief

Apuntes sobre el Duelo

The narrative begins with the passing of Ivan Ilych, a respected judge, as announced by Peter Ivanovich, his colleague and friend, during a meeting. The judges contemplate the career opportunities that Ivan's demise might offer them, and Peter later attends Ivan's funeral. Upon observing Ivan's body, Peter notices an expression of disapproval and warning on Ivan's face, which unsettles him. Meanwhile, Ivan's wife Praskovya discusses with Peter about maximizing her late husband's government pension. As Peter departs, he shares a conversation with Gerasim, Ivan's nurse, who makes a profound remark about the inevitability of death.

Flashback to Ivan's life, he is portrayed as an ordinary individual who, at the age of thirteen, enters law school and learns to mimic the behavior of the socially elite. He eventually becomes an examining magistrate and moves to a new province where he marries and starts a family. However, when Praskovya's pregnancy disrupts his cherished lifestyle, Ivan retreats further into his work and becomes increasingly distant from his family. With time, Ivan ascends the professional ladder, but when he is overlooked for a significant promotion, he moves his family to the countryside and goes to St. Petersburg in search of a higher paying job. Upon securing a high-ranking position through a friend, Ivan moves alone to the city to prepare a new house for his family, but during the preparations, he falls, hitting his side against the window frame.

Following the incident, Ivan starts experiencing discomfort and unusual taste in his mouth, which gradually intensifies, making him irritable. The doctors he consults provide no consensus about his condition, intensifying Ivan's fear and depression. As Ivan's health deteriorates, he is visited by thoughts of mortality. His wife, Praskovya, seems oblivious to his predicament, causing Ivan to despise her. Amid his suffering, Gerasim, his humble servant, provides Ivan with much-needed compassion and honesty. As his condition worsens, Ivan realizes that his existence is filled with artificiality, with everyone around him denying his impending death. He experiences a profound connection with his son, Vasya, and Gerasim, who understand his situation. After days of introspection, Ivan starts questioning the meaning of his life and suffering, and in a moment of epiphany, he realizes that his official life and social relations were all superficial. At the brink of death, Ivan experiences a moment of intense joy and clarity before he expires.

18 Best Short Books of All Time

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Great Gatsby

The Little Prince

Things Fall Apart

African Trilogy, Book 1

The Bell Jar

A Novel

Heart Berries

A Memoir

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The Awakening

Whereabouts

A Novel

The Vegetarian

A Novel

Wide Sargasso Sea

Notes on Grief

The Death of Ivan Ilych

Pedro Páramo

A Single Man

A Novel

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

The End We Start From

Bonjour Tristesse

A Novel

Sources

What To Read Next

18 Best Short Books of All Time

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Great Gatsby

The Little Prince

Things Fall Apart

African Trilogy, Book 1

The Bell Jar

A Novel

Heart Berries

A Memoir

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The Awakening

Whereabouts

A Novel

The Vegetarian

A Novel

Wide Sargasso Sea

Notes on Grief

The Death of Ivan Ilych

Pedro Páramo

A Single Man

A Novel

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

The End We Start From

Bonjour Tristesse

A Novel

Sources

What To Read Next

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