Has this happened to you? Someone tells you about a book you must read and you’re thrilled – until you realize it’s a Very Big One, a wonderful slab of words so thick it needs its own seat on an airplane.
Big books are great, no argument. But hear me out: What about short ones? Slim editions to slip into your pocket as talismans against unwelcome conversation at the DMV or a distraction while you await your lunch order.
Or maybe as something to enjoy in an evening, like a literary one-night stand.
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Before the long Labor Day weekend kicks off, I thought I’d suggest some superbly slim books for summer’s end. You’ll find a mix of fiction and nonfiction, crime and horror, translation and poetry, and nearly all can be read in one sitting or slipped in between bouts of scrolling through social media.
Darcy O’Brien, “A Way of Life, Like Any Other” (NYRB Classics)
Published in 1977, this award-winning short novel by a former Pomona College professor is a delight. O’Brien, the son of real-life Hollywood movie stars of the ’20s and ’30, George O’Brien and Marguerite Churchill, writes with clarity, humor and sadness about a boy growing up in Malibu with inattentive parents whose fortunes are in decline. An ideal read for a holiday weekend in Southern California, it also features a character raving about the wonders of avocado toast, decades before it became a thing.
David Diop, “At Night All Bood Is Black” (translated by Anna Moschovakis) (Picador)
Diop’s anti-war novel, which I picked up at Octavia’s Bookshelf, is brief but intense. Nominated for the 2021 International Booker Prize, it tells the story of two Senegalese soldiers serving in the French military during the brutal trench fighting of World War I. It’s often described as “harrowing” for its depiction of violence, brutality and oppression, and I can only agree.
Masatsugu Ono, “At the Edge of the Woods” (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter) (Two Lines Press)
Short novels don’t always have to be gobbled down quickly. I’ve taken my time with this deliciously eerie book about a family in a house near a strange, unsettling forest. After his pregnant wife leaves to visit her parents, a father and young son begin to hear strange sounds emerging from the trees.
Ross Gay, “The Book of Delights” (Algonquin)
The acclaimed poet, who won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award that Claremont Graduate University bestows, composed these short essays over the course of a year. And I’ll admit I have no idea how thick this book is since I’ve been listening to it on audio. These short essays are so many things: sweet, powerful, funny, honest, moving. Gay has a new book on the way, too; I can’t wait for it.
Kathryn Scanlan, “Kick the Latch” (New Directions) (FYI: I’m showing the UK cover from Daunt because I liked it so much I ordered myself one from England.)
Based on interviews with a real-life horse trainer named Sonia, Scanlan’s book offers short, potent and moving stories from a woman’s quietly eventful life. I was hooked by page 9 as Sonia recalls Bicycle Jenny, a strange neighborhood figure who lived in a pit under the husk of her burned-down home and had a gift for keeping plants, cats, and Chihuahaus healthy. Loved this book.
Leonora Carrington, “The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington” (Dorothy, a publishing project)
Published by Dorothy, a publishing project, the unique endeavor with a local connection that I featured last year, this collection of short fiction by Surrealist artist and writer Carrington is full of the unexpected, beginning with its first story about a debutante who – preferring to stay in her room reading – enlists a friend to attend an event in her place. That friend is a hyena.
Jean-Patrick Manchette, “Fatale” (NYRB Classics)
I’ve read other Manchette, but I pulled out this compact, 91-page book to read its first short chapter and the terse story kicks off with a bang. A gothic noir, it promises the kind of dark behavior that begets revenge and retribution. Sounds like the kind of thing I’d take to the beach (but I choose my beach reads poorly).
Claire Keegan, “Foster” (Grove Press)
Many of you have probably read the popular Irish writer at this point; she’s become well-known for this book and “Small Things Like These,” which are as rich in meaning and emotion as they are brief and easy to read. In “Foster,” which I won’t spoil with too much explaining, a small girl is taken by her father to live with relatives on a farm.
Robert Macfarlane, “Ghostways” (Norton)
This is a bit of a cheat: This slim volume contains two short Macfarlane books, “Ness” and “Holloway” (the latter co-created with Dan Richards and Stanley Donwood), worth your time. It’s also an opportunity to recommend Macfarlane’s other books to you. Check out our conversation about his wonderful (yes, longer) “Underland” as well as the reading group he led during the pandemic.
Clarice Lispector, “The Hour of the Star” (New Directions)
The Ukrainian-born Brazilian powerhouse novelist and short story writer, who died in 1977 at age 56, has experienced a major renaissance over the last few years, and I’m still getting to know her work. While last year saw the English language publication of “Too Much of Life,” a massive collection of her short “crônicas” or magazine pieces, this final novella, which many believe her best, may be the place to start – especially if you pick up the cool New Directions 100th anniversary edition (like I did).
Sophie Calle, “True Stories” (Actes Sud)
A Paris-based conceptual artist whose work is collected in major museums, Calle first published these autobiographical sketches in 1994 and has since republished updated and revised versions of it. I picked up the seventh edition at Books Are Magic, and it features photos and brief, powerful stories about her life told in a paragraph or even just a few sentences.
(Covers courtesy of the publishers)
What short (or long) books have you been enjoying this summer? Please feel free to email me at [email protected] with “ERIK’S BOOK PAGES” in the subject line and I may include your comments in an upcoming newsletter.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
‘Losing Music’ author John Cotter recommends a Canadian classic
John Cotter is the author of the memoir, “Losing Music.” (Photo credit Kirsten Rebekah Bethmann / Courtesy of Milkweed Editions)
In his memoir, “Losing Music,” John Cotter details his struggle with Ménière’s disease, an inner-ear disorder with no known cause and no known cure. Cotter spoke with Michael Schaub about his book and his life, saying: “There are many days when it would be pretty useless for me to try to listen to music, and sometimes I try anyway. I’ve just decided to accept that I don’t hear it the way I used to hear it, that it can’t be perfect for me any longer. And that’s OK.” Here he responds to the Book Pages Q&A.
Q: What are you reading now?
Steve Himmer’s novel “Scratch”, a slow creeper with eerie close-ups on the New England woods.
Q: Is there a book or books you always recommend to other readers?
“Fifteen Dogs” by André Alexis, a brilliant little fable: strange and accessible and playful and emotionally devastating. It’s famous in Canada, but not in America; but we can change that.
Q: What’s something – a fact, a bit of dialogue or something else – that stayed with you from a recent reading?
Lately it’s been a line from Mary-Kim Arnold’s “The Fish & The Dove”: “Time is a robe stitched through with ash.”
Q: Do you have any favorite book covers?
Mary Austin Speaker’s book covers for Milkweed Editions are so perfectly balanced: the weights of the words and palates and ratios. One of the reasons I was so confident placing “Losing Music” with Milkweed was the assurance that, regardless of how well I’d told the story, at least the cover would be beautiful.
Q: Is there a genre or type of book you read the most – and what would you like to read more of?
I should read more art books, and not just look at the pictures. I wish they were written better. I just finished one about representations of the body in late Medieval art and it was a rare exception — gracefully written, jargon-free, full of interesting tidbits. It’s all about the collection of this one museum in Utrecht with a wonderfully long name: Museum Catharijneconvent. Edited by Wendelien van Welie-Vink.
Q: What’s a memorable book experience – good or bad – you’re willing to share?
Adam Golaski used to write poems on the back of receipts. However long the receipt was, that’s how long the poem would be. A perfect constraint: practical and experimental, and literary ironies pre-installed. There are some reproductions of these in his latest book, “Voice Notes”, and reading them is like falling backward into time, when I was younger and I had the courage to take a constraint like that and run with it, and see how far I could go.
Q: Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
My old Shakespeare professor, Bill Sullivan, used to hurl himself around the room, a papier-mâché sword in his hand, gesturing emphatically. He made the words come alive for me, and for everyone in that class. All those words stayed alive.
Authors and brothers Tod and Lee Goldberg each have books coming out in early September. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Crime family
How brothers Lee and Tod Goldberg turned crime fiction into a family business. READ MORE
• • •
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson poses during a visit to a coffee shop Friday, May 30, 2003, in his Seattle neighborhood. The playwright, who died in 2005, is the subject of a new biography by Patti Hartigan. (Photo credit AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Theater Giant
August Wilson towers over American theater. Patti Hartigan’s new book tells why. READ MORE
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“Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk,” a memoir by professional gambler Billy Walters, is among the top-selling nonfiction releases at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Simon & Schuster)
The week’s bestsellers
The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE
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Bookish (SCNG)
What’s next on ‘Bookish’
The next installment is Sept. 15 at 5 p.m. with authors Jesús Trejo, Lee Goldberg and Tod Goldberg. Sign up for free now.
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