Best short novels for a classic quick read in 2024
Time is precious, but so is knowledge.
In allowing ourselves to get lost in a story, we’re exploring one of our most vulnerable states. Suspended between reality and fiction – whether on the tube during the morning commute, in the back of a coffee shop or on the sofa at home – we’re exposed to romance, philosophy, religion, heartbreak, devastation and unadulterated joy through as little as a singular A5 page.
While losing oneself in a hefty novel such as Hanya Yanagihara’s simultaneously beloved and reviled A Little Life is all well and good, there’s something incredibly special about racing through a novella and feeling as though our personal world has shifted on its axis in the space of a few hours.
On a personal note, I once sat in my darkened university library and read Mary Shelley’s in a singular, unbroken sitting until dawn broke. Mind you, I had a tutorial the next morning that I
