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The 54 Best Short Books you can Read in a Day

December 7, 2015July 25, 2018 by

“What are the best short books?” We looked at 15 articles and 224 different books in an attempt to answer that very question. Below you will find our results of the 54 top short books of all-time. Click here to see the methodology used.

The Type of intro Paragraph That can be Found in a Best Short Books Listicle

We’ve all had a 15 lb book that sits on our nightstand or bookshelf for months after starting, the bookmark only moving ever so slowly through. “It’s great, I swear” friends will say, “you just have to get through the first 400 pages!” When all is said and done, you either give up on the book part way or slog through to the very end, neglecting other books for weeks or months at a time. This list does not include any of those types of books! We’ve consulted the experts, and come up with 54 of the best books that you can breeze through in a single setting.

The Top 54 Books You Can Read in a Day

Number of listicles consulted: 15
Total Number of Books: 224

36.) The Prince by Niccolo Macchiavelli

Appears On: 2 lists
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The Other 170 Best Short Books That Only Appear on a Single List

10-Minute Declutter – Barrie Davenport and S.J. Scott
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings – Gabriel García Márquez
Ablutions by Patrick deWitt
Adé‘ by Rebecca Walker
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Alfred Hitchcock: The Man Who Knew Too Much – Michael Wood
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” — Robert Fulghum
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
An Event in Autumn – Henning Mankell
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom by Amy Hempel
Awakening, Kate Chopin
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
Born Standing Up” — Steve Martin
Brokeback Mountain – Annie Proulx
By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño
Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
Chéri, Colette
Chicken Soup For The Soul” — Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen
Child of God by Cormac McCarthy
Death in Spring’ by Merce Rodoreda
Death in Venice – Thomas Mann
Deep Ellum by Brandon Hobson
Different Seasons – Stephen King
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick
Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff … and it’s all small stuff” — Richard Carlson, Ph.D
Dubliners – James Joyce
Economics in One Lesson – Henry Hazlitt
Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, Donald Antrim
Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide, When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
Ghosts, César Aira
Giovanni’s Room James Baldwin
Goings by Gordon Lish
Goodbye Tsugumi – Banana Yoshimoto
Guns – Stephen King
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen
Heart of a Dog, Mikhail Bulgakov
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
House Made of Dawn, N. Scott Momaday
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
If You’re Not Yet Like Me by Edan Lepucki
In the Orchard, the Swallows by Peter Hobbs
In the Penal Colony – Franz Kafka
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
Into the War by Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Jakob von Gunten by Robert Walser
John the Posthumous by Jason Schwartz
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
King Cophetua – Julien Gracq
Lady Susan – Jane Austen
Larger Than Life – Jodi Picoult
Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner
Lifeboat No. 8 – Elizabeth Kaye
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Lucinella by Lore Segal
Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garciá Márquez
Mile 81 – Stephen King
Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West
Mrs. Caliban – Rachel Ingalls
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Natural Histories by Guadalupe Nettel
Nightwood, Djuna Barnes
Nikola Tesla: Imagination and the Man That Invented the 20th Century – Sean Patrick
Nine Stories – J.D. Salinger
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Not a Star‘ by Nick Hornby
Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Passing by Nella Larsen
Pedro PÃ¡ramo by Juan Rulfo
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood – Marjane Satrapi
Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov
Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice
Poke the Box – Seth Godin
Post Office – Charles Bukowski
Rape: A Love Story by Joyce Carol Oates
Ravel by Jean Echenoz
Ray by Barry Hannah
Safety Tips for Living Alone – Jim Shepard
Satori In Paris – Jack Kerouac
Second Variety – Philip K. Dick
Sh*t My Dad Says – Justin Halpern
Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate Collection – Arthur Conan Doyle
Shopgirl by Steve Martin
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Smile: The Astonishing Powers of a Simple Act – Ron Gutman
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Steal Like an Artist – Austin Kleon
Symposium By Plato
The Adventures of Mao on the Long March by Frederic Tuten
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man By James Weldon Johnson
The Ballad of the Sad Café – Carson McCullers
The Beauty of the Husband by Anne Carson
The Body Artist, Don DeLillo
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka
The Call of the Wild – Jack London
The Case of the Caretaker – Agatha Christie
The Communist Manifesto By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Complete Tales of Lucy Gold by Kate Bernheimer
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller
The Dead – James Joyce
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy
The Dig by Cynan Jones
The Doors of Perception – Aldous Huxley
The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark
The Elements of Style – William Strunk
The Fifth Child – Doris Lessing
The Ghost Writer, Philip Roth
The Gifts of Imperfection – Brené Brown
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Heart of Haiku – Jane Hirshfield
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
The Invention of Morel – Adolfo Bioy Casares
The King, Donald Barthelme
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Lime Twig by John Hawkes
The Little Prince By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Loser by Thomas Bernhard
The Magic Toyshop, Angela Carter
The Masque of the Red Death – Edgar Allan Poe
The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers
The Missing Year of Juan Salvatierra by Pedro Mairal
The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell
The Neon Bible by John Kennedy Toole
The Optimist’s Daughter, Eudora Welty
The Orange Eats Creeps, Grace Krilanovich
The Outsider – Albert Camus
The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Plains by Gerald Murnane
The Plains of Cement by Patrick Hamilton
The Possession by Annie Ernaux
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare
The Tent – Margaret Atwood
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip’ by George Saunders
The Virtue of Selfishness – Ayn Rand
The Visitor – Maeve Brennan
The Wall – Jean-Paul Sartre
The Yellow Wallpaper By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Three Tales – Gustave Flaubert
Tristessa – Jack Kerouac
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Utopia, by Thomas More
Very Good Lives – J.K. Rowling
War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
We the Animals, Justin Torres
What’s to Become of the Boy? by Heinrich Boll
Who Moved My Cheese?” — Spencer Johnson
Why I Am So Wise – Friedrich Nietzsche
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Zazie In The Metro by Raymond Queneau