Short on Time?
Try These Short* Works of Fiction

Warm, Light, or Uplifting:

Dearest Dorothy, Are We There Yet?, Charlene Ann Baumbich
Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper, Harriet Scott Chessman
The Christmas Quilt: An Elm Creek Quilts Novel, Jennifer Chiaverini
Walking Across Egypt, Clyde Edgerton
Home to Harmony, Philip Gulley
Friendship Cake, J. Lynne Hinton
Gideon’s Gift, Karen Kingsbury
Flying Crows, James Lehrer
The Pleasure of My Company, Steve Martin 

Suspense & Mystery:

The Book of Light, Michelle Blake
Let’s All Kill Constance, Ray Bradbury
Mrs. Jeffries Pinches the Post, Emily Brightwell
Sick of Shadows, Marion Chesney
It Had to Be You: A Grace & Favor Mystery, Jill Churchill
Places in the Dark, Thomas H. Cook
The Train Now Departing: Two Novellas, Martha Grimes
Prince of Lost Places, Kathy Hepinstall
The Portrait, Iain Pears
Step to the Graveyard Easy, Bill Pronzini

Multi-Cultural:

The Accompanist, Nina Nikolaevna Berberova
Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee
Get a Life, Nadine Gordimer
Heat and Dust, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Earthquake Bird, Susanna Jones
Autobiography of My Mother, Jamaica Kincaid
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Sijie Dai
Shadow Family, Miyuki Miyabe
Half a Life, V.S. Naipaul
When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
The Speed of Light, Elizabeth Rosner

Domestic Fiction & Coming of Age:

The Scarlet Letters, Louis Auchincloss
Dear Zoe, Philip Beard
We Are All Welcome Here, Elizabeth Berg
The Shovel and the Loom, Carl Friedman
Marrying Mom, Olivia Goldsmith
We Are All Fine Here, Mary Guterson
Truth and Consequences, Alison Lurie
Property, Valerie Martin
Julie and Romeo, Jeanne Ray
Unless, Carol Shields
An Unfinished Life, Mark Spragg
Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell

Adventure, War, Speculative Fiction:

Hidden Latitudes, Alison Anderson
Articles of War, Nick Arvin
From the Dust Returned: A Family Remembrance, Ray Bradbury
Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Night Train to Lisbon, Emily Grayson
The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
Veniss Underground, Jeff VanderMeer

Strong Women Characters:

A Turn in the Road, Julie Ellis
One Sunday Morning, Amy Ephron
Divining Women, Kaye Gibbons
The Ice Queen, Alice Hoffman
The Lost Garden, Helen Humphreys
Sula, Toni Morrison

Short Stories:

Good Bones and Simple Murders, Margaret Eleanor Atwood
Short and Tall Tales: Moose County Legends Collected by James Mackintosh Qwilleran, Lilian Jackson Braun
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: A Short Novel and Three Stories, Truman Capote
The Coast of Chicago, Stuart Dybek
Strange Candy, Laurell K. Hamilton
Making It Up, Penelope Lively

Hard to Categorize, But Too Good to Miss:

The Sea, John Banville
Best Friends, Thomas Berger
Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
Dinner With a Perfect Stranger: An Invitation Worth Considering,
David Gregory
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
The Body Artist, Don DeLillo
Einstein’s Dreams, Alan P. Lightman
The Preservationist, David Maine
NNNNN, Carl Reiner
Lying Awake, Mark Salzman
The Finishing School, Muriel Spark
Old School, Tobias Wolff

*Most titles have fewer than 225 pages. The titles listed may be found in the fiction section in alphabetical order according to author’s last name. For other reading suggestions, check out the Readers Services pages on the Library’s website.