As we enter into the final weeks of 2024, you may be looking for something a little more chill and easier to get through with your book club, if you haven’t put off meetings all together. In one of my book clubs, we decided to reconvene in January, and have already chosen the book we’ll discuss next year so we have more time to read it with the holidays going on. In my other, we’re still chugging along on our usual schedule.
Whatever your book club is feeling right now concerning meeting cadence, I feel like shorter books could come in handy. We are, after all, still in a stressful election month, attention spans may be shot, reading slumps entered, and palettes may need a quick little cleanse—all of which can be helped with some quick reads.
The following books I’ve gathered are 240 pages or fewer, and are of varying genres. They will (quickly) take you through personal essays about food to a curious case of a missing sister and a reality show to a girl who starts a cosmic war in a West African mythology-inspired world.
Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
With Bite by Bite, the author of World of Wonders is gifting us a collection of essays about how food is inherently tied to our memories and emotions. From shaved ice to rambutan to lumpia, what we eat and drink can summon feelings of joy, grief, and nostalgia, just as it carves out ethnic boundaries. Nezhukumatathil also looks at what it means for the environment for us to consume food, and the ethics involved with gathering it.
Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
Here, Cornejo Villavicencio, author of The Undocumented Americans, shares another tale illuminating the life of undocumented people living in the United States, this time in fiction form. The eponymous Catalina—she herself undocumented—goes to live with her undocumented grandparents following a tragedy. As she prepares to graduate from Harvard—after having gotten into certain bougie subcultures there—she’s faced with helping her grandparents, and the uncertainty of finding work after graduation as an undocumented person.
What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jiménez
One day, 13-year-old Ruthy Ramirez disappears after track practice on Staten Island, and her Puerto Rican family is left forever changed. Then, 12 years later, something odd happens. The oldest sister of the Ramirez children, Jessica, notices a woman on one of those raggedy reality TV shows called Catfight. She has dyed red hair, but the under-eye beauty mark is unmistakable: it’s Ruthy.
In the Shadow of the Fall by Tobi Ogundiran
If you’re in the market for mythology-inspired fantasy, this novella by Ogundiran follows the acolyte Ashâke, who seems to be the only follower of the orisha who they won’t speak to. After watching her peers become full priests, she tries to summon an orisha in desperation, but instead summons a centuries-old cosmic war, with herself placed right at the center.
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer
In 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered Tenochtitlan (what is now Mexico City) with his cadre of captains, troops, and enslaved people and is ceremonially welcomed by Atotoxli, emperor Moctezuma’s sister. The Spaniards have conquering on their minds, but they can’t help but feel intimidated by the grandeur of the city and its people. Here, that fateful meeting—and the fate of Tenochtitlan— is reimagined, breathing fresh life into the splendor of the city at the height of the Aztec empire.
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