50 Books, 150 Pages or Less: Part 1 of 3

A good novel doesn’t have to be long novel. Here are some great, short reads for those of us with a shortage of time or attention. Look for parts two and three in the coming months.

	Ghosts by César Aira 139 pages A strange, ultimately touching story about a migrant family living atop an incomplete apartment building that is also inhabited by ghosts that only they can see. According to the New York Times, "Aira is one of the most provocative and idio­syncratic novelists working in Spanish today, and should not be missed." More about the book
	Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster 145 pages Booklist called Auster's spare novel "an archly playful and shrewdly philosophical tribute to the transcendence of stories." A man who has lost his memory wakes up in a barren room only to confront a parade of people he may have hurt, though he does not know how. More about the book
	The Mezzanine: A Novel by Nicholson Baker 135 pages Reviewing this novel in 1989, the New York Times stated that "Its 135 pages probably contain more insight into life as we live it than anything currently on the best-seller lists." Despite having almost no plot or conflict, The Mezzanine is an insightful and very funny book about the trivial objects and events that populate daily life. More about the book
	The Actual by Saul Bellow 103 pages Library Journal called this late novel by the Nobel laureate "an achingly simple cry from the heart that reads like a parting love letter." After living most of his adult life overseas, Bellow's narrator returns to Chicago and becomes reacquainted with his first love. More about the book
	The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett 128 pages The Queen of England develops a passion for reading after chasing a runaway corgi into a bookmobile and feeling obligated to check out a book. USA Today called Bennett's book a "hilarious and pointed...lesson in the redemptive and subversive power of reading," saying that, "Most of all, The Uncommon Reader is a lot of fun to read." More about the book
	The Lemur by Benjamin Black 132 pages A journalist agrees to write to the biography of his father-in-law, a former CIA operative and the head of a telecommunication company. To help he hires a researcher who is quickly murdered, possibly for learning a little too much. Who killed him and why? Kirkus Reviews declared that "Black's prose is so mesmerizing--crisp precise, alive with telling details--that you'll enjoy every step." Benjamin Black is a pen name of Man Booker Prize-winner John Banville. More about the book
	By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño 130 pages Bolaño's fever dream of a novel is a deathbed confession by a priest and literary critic who passively supported the Pinochet regime. By Night in Chile, which the New York Times described as "densely learned" and "richly evocative," Was the first of Bolaño's critically acclaimed novels to appear in English. More about the book
	A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr 135 pages Physically and mentally scarred by his experience as a soldier in World War I and reeling from a divorce, Tom Birkin seeks solitude in the English countryside. The Atlantic Monthly called Carr's much-loved novel "a story of spiritual regeneration, even of resurrection," that possesses "not mere lyrical beauty but a rare generosity of vision and an ever alert sense of the absurd." More about the book
	The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon 131 pages Retired and intent on beekeeping, a detective resembling Sherlock Holmes is persuaded to take the case of a stolen parrot. New York Magazine called Pulitzer Prize-winner Chabon's sly but resonant homage to the classic detective story "a profound pleasure." More about the book
	The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros 134 pages Cisneros' iconic first novel. In a series of short vignettes, teenage Esperanza describes growing up in Chicago amongst great poverty and her dreams of escaping. When this book was originally published in 1991, the New York Times stated that Cisneros "seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page... She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one." More about the book
	The Body Artist : A Novel by Don DeLillo 124 pages Delillo's novel about a recently widowed "body artist" who discovers a small, strange man living in her rented house is a meditation on art, time, and perception. The New York Times praised the book's "exquisite beauty," describing it as an "intimate affair, quiet, spare and strange--but not so strange as to distract from the glories of the chiseled prose." More about the book
	Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald 141 pages Follows the lives of an eccentric community living on barges in the Thames. Booker Prize judges called Fitzgerald's novel "flawless" when it was first published in 1979. For more on Fitzgerald, see our earlier post: Have You Read...Penelope Fitzgerald. More about the book
	Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons 126 pages Orphaned eleven year old Ellen Foster's moving and often funny account of finally finding a place to call home. Gibbons book was an early selection of Oprah's Book Club. More about the book
	Necklace and Calabash: A Chinese Detective Story by Robert van Gulik 143 pages A Dutch diplomat and expert on Chinese history and culture, van Gulik wrote a series of mysteries set in medieval China that featured the inimitable magistrate Judge Dee. These mysteries have had a devoted following, and garnered plenty of praise, ever since they appeared in the 1950s and 60s. The St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers goes so far as to call them "certainly the finest ethnographic detective novels in English." Though it is one of the last books in the series, Necklace and Calabash is a great place to start. More about the book
	The Man in the Picture: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill 145 pages When it was published in the UK, The Independent called Hill's novel "A masterclass in the art of dread." An old-fashioned ghost story about the sinister secrets hiding in a mysterious painting. More about the book
	Grief by Andrew Holleran 150 pages "Grief," according to Salon.com, "is a strange, slim, beautiful book… like a single note struck on a perfect silver bell, it carries far." Holleran's eloquent, understated novel is narrated by an aging professor who moves to Washington, DC after the death of his mother. Grief won a Stonewall Book Award in 2007. More about the book
	The Name of the World by Denis Johnson 129 pages Johnson's spare, poetic story of a college professor's attempts to come to terms with the deaths of his wife and child. The Los Angeles Times said, of Johnson's novel, "How easy it is to forget, with all the trivia in print cluttering our lives, that words can be this supple a vehicle for transcendent healing." More about the book