Top 5 Short Books You Can Finish on a Sunday Afternoon

Short, complete novels for one long sit on the couch, when you want the satisfaction of a last page before dinner.

1. 1

   Small Things Like These — Claire Keegan

   Barely over a hundred pages, and it still lands harder than most 600-page doorstoppers. Read it in December if you can.

2. 2

   Train Dreams — Denis Johnson

   A whole American life squeezed into a novella. It feels like a folk song you somehow already know.

3. 3

   We Have Always Lived in the Castle — Shirley Jackson

   Merricat is the most charming unreliable narrator ever written, and you'll be fully on her side before you notice anything's wrong.

4. 4

   Convenience Store Woman — Sayaka Murata

   Funny and deadpan, and secretly furious about how much we demand that people be normal. You'll never see a convenience store the same way.

5. 5

   The Old Man and the Sea — Ernest Hemingway

   The school-assigned classic that's actually better when you read it as an adult on purpose, with nobody grading you.