I started reading last year, mostly productivity stuff, but now I’m really looking to jump into fiction to unwind after a long week of uni, studying, and work. I need something to help me relax during the weekends without feeling like I’m working.
I’d love some recommendations for books that are short enough to finish in a day but still hit hard and are totally worth it. No specific genre preferences right now. I’m open to whatever. Looking forward to seeing what you guys suggest. Thank you very much in advance.
The Murderbot Diaries are some of my favourite novellas. They are a lot more interesting than the title may suggest too so highly recommend.
Generation X by Douglas Copeland
Virtual Light by William Gibson
The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman
Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
That’s a tough one.
Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett was my first foray into the Diskworld so it’s special to me, but also just a great book.
Neuromancer by William Gibson blew me away. It first defined so many things that are now Cyberpunk and SciFi tropes.
Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson is probably my favourite discovery in recent years - the whole series was just so much fun.
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey, absolute SciFi banger. Politics, intrigue, war, amazing characters, insane setpieces… cried more than once during my read.
Discworld is a strong recommendation from me as well, though Guards Guards is my preferred starting point
This reading order guide is quite good, though I’m pretty sure the note saying where the author said to start is wrong. IIRC, Pratchett’s recommendation was to start at Mort, skip Sourcery, and read through chronologically.
I also highly recommend the Orconomics trilogy. It’s clever, witty, satirical, and very, very Pratchettesque.
I feel with discworld there’s so much material, and all of it is mooostly standalone readable (?) that i havent had any issues.
I’d say the rincewind stories are an ok starting point too, but i think the characters are extra whacky if you aren’t used to the world. Guards guards is probably good, but i just grabbed men at arms at the book shop on a whim knowing next to nothing about it
Off the top of my head some shorter books:
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, Post Office by Charles Bukowski, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev, Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke.
At that length, try Cat’s Cradle, by Vonnegut. It’s debatable how “hard it hits”, with that being subjective, but it’s one of those books that can change how you think about what books can/should bring to the table.
If you don’t mind reading books meant for a younger audience, try bridge to terabithia. I still can’t read it without crying, and it’s a very fast read.
If you want light, silly fantasy, try any of the first ten or so books in the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Yeah, he catches some flak from his rather unusual choices, but they’re easy to ignore if you take them in the spirit of the series.
Same with any of the castle perilous series, by John Dechancie.
It’s kinda hard to be certain what a given person can read in a single day, so I’m kinda going with stuff that I can finish in less than that, given a lack of interruption.
I read all of Piers Anthony and I kind of regret it, but his body of work just joins hundreds of other trashy novels that I read. I don’t really read as much junk as I used to.
For my own recommendation, I’d probably go with Mistborn. It’s reasonably short and pretty fun to read without being awful.
For a completely different kind of novel The Secret Life of Bees is really quite wonderful.
