Bite-Sized Book Recommendations

Or: A few suggestions for those interested in getting into (or back into) reading, but whose commitment issues or time constraints leave them doom-scrolling instead of getting started on that stack of 500+ page monsters that they’ve been meaning to read for the past two years. Jokes aside, I might love lugging around a paving-slab of a tome in order to simultaneously tone my arms and appear as pretentious as possible on public transit, but I do recognize the value in something a little briefer. There’s an art to writing a really good novella or short story, it forces a writer to be incredibly judicious with their words (which is why me and my love of almost-relevant asides will probably never write one) and hone their character descriptions and plot lines down to their sharpest edges.

Every book on this list is under 200 pages and while it certainly leans towards my own personal reading tastes (because this my blog and the one place I cater to no one but myself), there is a variety of styles and genres available for perusal – so time and arm strength provide you no excuse, get reading.

Animals Eat Each Other by Elle Nash (121 pages)

              Let me begin with either the trigger warning (or the enticement) that Elle Nash’s debut novella contains plenty of both self-harm and weird sex stuff. Now that I have your attention, Animals Eat Each Other is a glimpse into the decay of middle America through the eyes of an unnamed young woman who spends an unmoored summer drifting through a series of substances and situationships. I love the desperate, almost visceral sense of ennui that Nash imbues this story with, both the characters and the town they live is palpably rotting away in a forgotten, rusted-over haze that gives the reader an incredible amount of sympathy for our narrator and her imminent self-destruction.

On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (126 pages)  

            This should be essential reading for pretty much everyone in the so-called Global North as our governing bodies slide increasingly towards the titular tyranny. Snyder here provides Baby’s First Political Awakening, a practical and approachable guide for recognizing the hallmarks of totalitarianism and pushing back on this kind of destructive ideology in everyday life. Its an excellent gateway drug to Synder’s other books (I highly recommend The Road to Unfreedom) as well to the wide and deeply disquieting world of political theory more generally.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo (146 pages)

             One of my most recent acquisitions to make this list and one that near-instantly earned itself a place on my Save In Case of House Fire Book List, The Woods All Black is a glorious blend of horror, romance, historical fiction, and queer storytelling that delivers prose as sparkling as the creek around which much of the action centers. A frontier nurse is sent to a small Appalachian town plagued by the typical twins of a firebrand preacher and legends of monstrous creatures roaming the woods. Through the eyes of this outsider, Lee Mandelo explores what it means to be a monster and who gets to decide what constitutes one. Its breathtaking.

Laughter In the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (197 pages)

            We’re pushing right up against that 200-page limit with Laughter In the Dark, but I cannot resist spreading the Gospel of Nabokov at every possible opportunity. This rapier-tongued little story of lust, scheming, and revenge provides a great way to get into Nabokov if you find something like Lolita or Ada a little intimidating. This is an earlier work of his and he hasn’t quite bloomed into the full flower of his signature poetic prose, making it easier to follow and understand on the first read than some of his later books, but you still get plenty of the typical Nabokovian staples including deeply twisted characters, a sly sense of humour, unreliable narration, and the consequences of illicit and obsessive love.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang (201 pages)

Okay technically we’ve gone just slightly over my self-imposed 200 page limit, but I promise you that Han Kang’s unhinged masterpiece is worth every extra word of your time. In The Vegetarian a young married woman decides abruptly to stop eating meat and this seemingly personal decision sets off a chain reaction of insanity amongst the people in her life, revealing the extent to which they seek to control her. It’s graphic, bizarre, and incredibly apropos in our current times – pick this one up immediately.