| Today, I was perusing the shelves at a branch of my library system when I witnessed what I'd like to call a "tiny book travesty." As you can see in the reenactment to the right, tiny books get overshadowed by their hardcover oppressors, their why-am-I-paying-$15-for-a-paperback cousins, and they are even dwarfed by most mass market paperbacks. I don't think a lot of shorter books get enough play for many reasons, not least of all that they have lower visibility because they are smaller in size. However, If you're someone like me who gets depressed that you'll never have enough time to read all the books you dream of reading... |  |  On my fake shelf, all the genres are mixed together. *gasp* |
then you should consider dedicating a few weeks of your life to a marathon of short YA books! Exhibit A, to your left, shows in rather obvious fashion that a reader could plow through four shorter books and still have less pages than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But Flannery, you're forgetting how absolutely enthralling Harry Potter is and who cares how many pages it is, it could never be too long! Shush your mouth, you don't even know which four tiny books I used so maybe they're just as good as HP! (also, stop being so negative!) Just think how many more books you could be crossing off your Goodreads Challenge if you explored the wonderful world of short novels. (which also sometimes qualify as novellas or novelettes.)
I searched the net to see if I could find some lists of shorter books but the only useful one I could find was a list of "Short and Sweet Teen Books Under 150 Pages" from the Austin Public Library. The compiler ( Joanna Nigrelli) included a little blurb for each of the books included and I was particularly stunned by the blurb for Robert Cormier's (of The Chocolate War and I Am The Cheese fame) 135-page book, Heroes: "After joining the army at fifteen and having his face blown away by a grenade in a battle in France, Francis returns home to Frenchtown hoping to find--and kill--the former childhood hero he feels betrayed him. " Say whaaaat? Sign me up to read that, stat. I'm also excited to read two others from her list that deal with mental illness, Invisible by Pete Hautman and Inside Out by Terry Trueman.
At first I was at a loss as to how to compile such a list but that didn't last long. I received a few list items from friends on Twitter and then I hit the mother lode when I realized that Goodreads could help. If you go to your bookshelves, hit 'all', then sort by number of pages (in the shelf settings if you don't have that option), you can find ALL the short books in your shelves. With the recommendations from even more tweets and from my own shelves, I have a pretty respectable number. I included the cover, title/author, page count (for the default Goodreads version, it might vary), genre, and links to the book on Goodreads and Amazon. The cover images also link to Amazon. Because I had to be a bit picky, I didn't include some books that are more middle grade and I made an arbitrary cutoffs at 100-220 pages. (Sorry John Green, Looking for Alaska is 221!)
Sort your shelves and leave any more that you find in the comments. I'll add their information into the beautiful wall of books. For a few authors, many of their works are under 220 (Judy Blume, Elizabeth Scott, Francesca Lia Block, etc.) -- I've included only one book by each author but please do leave others in the comments so we can have them. (Note: Our comment form does not accept html)
Happy short book reading!
I searched the net to see if I could find some lists of shorter books but the only useful one I could find was a list of "Short and Sweet Teen Books Under 150 Pages" from the Austin Public Library. The compiler ( Joanna Nigrelli) included a little blurb for each of the books included and I was particularly stunned by the blurb for Robert Cormier's (of The Chocolate War and I Am The Cheese fame) 135-page book, Heroes: "After joining the army at fifteen and having his face blown away by a grenade in a battle in France, Francis returns home to Frenchtown hoping to find--and kill--the former childhood hero he feels betrayed him. " Say whaaaat? Sign me up to read that, stat. I'm also excited to read two others from her list that deal with mental illness, Invisible by Pete Hautman and Inside Out by Terry Trueman.
At first I was at a loss as to how to compile such a list but that didn't last long. I received a few list items from friends on Twitter and then I hit the mother lode when I realized that Goodreads could help. If you go to your bookshelves, hit 'all', then sort by number of pages (in the shelf settings if you don't have that option), you can find ALL the short books in your shelves. With the recommendations from even more tweets and from my own shelves, I have a pretty respectable number. I included the cover, title/author, page count (for the default Goodreads version, it might vary), genre, and links to the book on Goodreads and Amazon. The cover images also link to Amazon. Because I had to be a bit picky, I didn't include some books that are more middle grade and I made an arbitrary cutoffs at 100-220 pages. (Sorry John Green, Looking for Alaska is 221!)
Sort your shelves and leave any more that you find in the comments. I'll add their information into the beautiful wall of books. For a few authors, many of their works are under 220 (Judy Blume, Elizabeth Scott, Francesca Lia Block, etc.) -- I've included only one book by each author but please do leave others in the comments so we can have them. (Note: Our comment form does not accept html)
Happy short book reading!
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 |  |  Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick (Perry and Gobi #1) by Joe Schreiber, 192 pp, contemporary [GR | Amazon] |  Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn, 183 pp, contemporary [GR | Amazon] |  |
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We don't usually use the "Read More" button on our blog posts here but I'm about to add over 100 more book covers to this post (*over the next few days*) so click to open up the full list in all its glory...
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 |  |  |  Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow, 208 pp, science fiction, cyberpunk [GR | Amazon] |  |
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 |  |  |  Ship of Souls by Zetta Elliot, 132 pp, fantasy, paranormal [GR | Amazon] |  |
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 |  Amelia O'Donohue is So Not A Virgin by Helen Fitzgerald, 217 pp, contemporary, boarding school [GR | Amazon] |  |  |  |
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Thanks to our Twitter friends and followers, Goodreads friends and to Tatiana and Catie for the recommendations and help putting this post together. Let us know if you have more to add!
