Ten brilliant – and brilliantly short – books to kickstart the year.
Whoever said “If you love something, you should let it go” was way off base.
Anyone who sets a yearly reading goal knows the truth: if you love something, you should quantify it with a numerical target to ensure that even your most beloved pastimes serve as a measure of your success (or not).
This is why I spend each December frantically trying to catch up with my self-imposed annual reading schedule. Tactics include: scanning the shelves for the skinniest spines, digging through Claire Keegan’s back catalogue, and having a heated mental debate over whether watching a play with subtitles counts.
Of course, come January, filled with the wilful naivety that only a new year can bring, I set the exact same target.
Sounds familiar? Don’t panic. This year’s going to be different. Why? Because I’ve compiled a list of short books to help you get ahead of the game.
Each book is under 200 pages to ensure you can continue turning your hobbies into work by prioritising results over enjoyment.
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan (152 pages)
Told in a series of vignettes based on real interviews, this kicker of a novella is a frank, stark, and tender account of one woman’s life as a racehorse trainer.
Read this if you like: double knotting your laces, dust, sober driving, gatefold covers, single-mindedness, the word “unflinching”, not flinching, imagining the lives of strangers, hubcaps, routine.
A young woman goes on a surreal journey of self-discovery sparked by a spam advert and a shoplifted supermarket trolley. An anti-coming-of-age story with an exceptional first sentence.
Read this if you like: escalators, long-haul flights, microwave dinners, Calibri, complaining about the hand statue on top of the Wellington City Gallery, complaining about the removal of the hand statue on top of the Wellington City Gallery, 2-for-1 deals.
A breakneck history of 20th-century physics and its eccentric and possessed geniuses disguised as a novel.
Read this if you like: arguing with people you agree with, Oppenheimer, passive-aggressive cat-based thought experiments, putting the pursuit of knowledge above personal hygiene, sparkling water, consequences.
A wry and touching portrait of the lives of two medieval women, both Christian mystics whose writings are among our most significant early English texts, and their drastically different spiritual journeys.
Read this if you like: the smell of lanolin, either avoiding or seeking attention, girl-bossing too close to the Son of God, serif fonts, stained glass, heresy, plums.
Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher (123 pages)
A not-quite-faerie, not-quite-human creature guards a mythic tower of mysterious origins until her vigil is interrupted by a well-mannered and persistent knight.
Read this if you like: saying please and thank you, beatific homicidal children, dried flowers, chilli hot chocolate, whimsy, men of honour, multi-faith conventions, declining invitations, toads.
A tragicomic novel by a pretentious and painfully self-aware poet written about a pretentious and painfully self-aware poet on a literary fellowship in Madrid. As detestable as it is engrossing.
Read this if you like: poetry, hating poetry, hating that you like poetry, struggling to write poetry, heatstroke, imposter syndrome, failed tragic heroes, disillusionment, nations contending with themselves, Hieronymus Bosch.
A misanthropic cyborg that refers to itself simply as “murderbot” is forced to go on a journey of self-discovery when the research mission it is contracted to protect is attacked.
Read this if you like: Roombas with knives strapped onto them, thanking Siri just in case, whispering “When can we leave?”, long sleeves, airplane turbulence, binge-watching.
Desire and passion are perverted by societal and internalised homophobia in this groundbreaking novel by one of the titans of 20th-century literature, written with blistering tenderness, poetry, and painful insight.
Read this if you like: faux velvet, fallibility, starched collars, romanticising your hangovers, absinthe, the silt at the bottom of a coffee cup, leather satchels, old televised speeches, sepia.
Ash by Louise Wallace (160 pages)
Thea, a veterinarian mother-of-two asked to work through her maternity leave, has had it up to here – and so has the volcano. An ingeniously layered, pyroclastic hymn to feminine rage.
Read this if you like: shirts that don’t need ironing, saying “cows” when you see cows, kettles that scream when they’re done, post-it note reminders, writing “as per my previous email”, too much peanut butter, reckonings.
Fup by Jim Dodge (128 pages)
You’d think it would be easy to write a sentence summary for a book this short, but you’d be wrong. All I can say is that not many books can make you cry with laughter and cry for real in so few pages.
Read this if you like: distilleries, guffaws, porcine nemeses, “quack” as onomatopoeia, “quack” as in unqualified, the old timer who’s seen it all, number 8 wire, sticking it to the man, mayhem, gravy.
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