Six Brilliant Reads: Novellas

No time to read? Think about a novella. At under 200 pages, you can often read them in a single sitting. These novellas are cracking reads that pack a lot in between their narrow covers.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood made the longlist for last year’s Booker Prize. Many thought that this story about Thomas, a shrimp harvester in an English coastal town, should have won. Twenty-year-old Thomas makes a meagre living, but dreams of one day becoming a folk singer. He’s too shy to ask out the girl he thinks about, when a film director arrives to do some location scouting and shakes things up.

Gail Baines is having a bad run of luck in Three Days in June by Anne Tyler. She loses her job and returns home to find her ex-husband on her doorstep, wanting to stay the night along with an elderly rescue cat. The reason for their divorce hovers unspoken as the couple prepare for their daughter’s wedding. A warm, witty and insightful novel about marriage, forgiveness and how we navigate relationships.

Alan Bennett’s little book, The Uncommon Reader, is the perfect story for booklovers. Published in 2006, it describes what happens when the Queen discovers a mobile library while out searching the palace grounds for her corgis. Never having had much time for reading, she nevertheless decides to borrow a book. One book leads to another, but not everyone in the royal household is happy about the Queen’s new pastime.

Water by John Boyne is the first in the Elements series of four novellas (along with Earth, Fire and Air). These are a series of connected stories that look at the darker side of human nature and its ripple effects. In Water, Vanessa arrives on an island to do some soul searching, following the devasting effects of her husband’s abuse. How complicit is she in his crimes; can she forgive herself and can she ever reconnect with her daughter?

Claire Keegan is another Irish author who is a brilliant practitioner of short-form fiction. Her novella Small Things Like These was adapted recently for the screen. Also worth reading is Foster, which follows a young girl who is sent to live with foster parents on a farm, while her mother expects a new baby, not knowing if she’s to return to her family. But here she finds affection and blossoms under the care these people give her.

Sakaya Murata is a prize-winning writer in Japan. Her humorous novella, Convenience Store Woman follows Keiko, a woman who never fitted in at school, but who finds work at a convenience store. Here everything is ordered and there are procedures for how to greet people, making social interactions so much simpler. But can she escape the pressure to find a more prestigious job, or even a husband?

These books will soon have you hooked on shorter books. Happy reading

Posted by JAM

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