7 Short Books to Jumpstart Reading Resolutions 

The winner of the Booker Prize, The Sense of an Ending, is a deceptively short novel with hidden depths. It’s a finely wrought meditation on memory — how we remember the past may not always match what exactly happened. 

The story unfolds from the perspective of Tony Webster, who’s lived a seemingly ordinary life, looking back on his childhood, school days, and former friends, until a mysterious legacy forces him to reconsider everything. 

Poignant and profound, The Sense of an Ending packs quite a punch, inviting the reader to revisit their own lives after a fashion.

Another Booker Prize winner, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital is contemplative and immersive, following the lives of six astronauts aboard an orbiting space station for 24 hours. 

The prose is achingly gorgeous and vivid, describing the vast beauty of our planet as seen from outer space, while also noticing the small details of mundanity. 

Carefully researched, deeply philosophical, and thoroughly engaging, Orbital makes for an unforgettable reading experience, especially for those who enjoy slow-paced, slice-of-life reads that luxuriate in the prose. 

Avra Margariti’s short fiction and poetry are equally spellbinding, and their debut novella, The New Hunger, is nothing short of a stunner. The story unfolds in a futuristic Greek city where a sudden mutation has transformed some of the city’s youth into flesh-craving “Eaters” and others into flesh-regenerating “Healers,” leaving them unscathed. 

Nora, our chief protagonist, is an unregistered Eater, caught in a spiral of guilt and grief even as she’s embroiled in a plot to overthrow the current regime. Navigating sisterly bonds while questioning her own sexuality, gender, and place in society, this novella is a powerful meditation on the complexities of queer identities, combined with surreal body horror, sensual prose, and flawed characters you can’t help caring about.

Inspired by the medieval poem of the same name, Pearl is a moving meditation on grief, as Marianne recounts her mother's disappearance when she was only eight years old, even as she becomes a mother herself. 

There’s a lovely, luscious, Gothic quality to the prose, with carefully chosen words and phrases that evoke a sense of loss, abandonment, and uncertainty, as Marianne slowly comes to terms with the lack of closure and embraces the prospect of motherhood again. 

A deeply emotional and hard-hitting read.

At less than ninety pages, Foster by Claire Keegan (known for her short yet profound works) is short enough to be finished in a single, atmospheric sitting. 

It tells the seemingly simple story of a child sent to live with foster parents on a farm while her mother has another child. She later learns that her foster parents had a deceased son before she is eventually reunited with her biological family. 

Nothing much seems to happen — but Foster takes the reader through an array of emotions, invoking deeper meanings with just a few well-chosen words.

Amal El-Mohtar co-wrote This Is How You Lose the Time War with Max Gladstone, a gorgeously poetic timey-wimey novella, and her own debut novella, The River Has Roots, glimmers with the same magical prose. 

This one’s a fairytale-turned-murder-ballad, delving into the depths of sisterly bonds, fey bargains, and the transformative power of language to alter reality. 

Unfolding in an idyllic setting and abounding in riddles and wordplay, The River Has Roots is the perfect choice for anyone missing the magic of childhood fairytales and bedtime stories. 

Finally, if you’re in the mood for a short, queer read that blends submarine horror with the relationship troubles of a lesbian couple, Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield will surely dazzle you. 

The story alternates between Miri, a grant writer, and Leah, her partner, who resurfaced from a deep-sea dive, thoroughly changed by the encounter. 

As Leah’s symptoms get worse, Miri struggles to come to terms with their growing distance and an increasingly uncertain future.