Books

Looking For A Weekend Read? Try These 15 Classics Under 250 Pages

by K.W. Colyard

If the term "classic novel" brings to mind lengthy works like War & Peace and Moby-Dick, you might be pleased to discover that there are plenty of short classics you can read in a weekend. I've picked out 15 crisp, snappy novels, and short-fiction collections for you to enjoy below, so pick one up for your next weekend reading sesh.

Before the recent outpouring of super-long novels like Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life and Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings, short novels were actually in good and common taste. Most of your favorite 20th-century novelists made a habit of writing novels on the shorter side of average — around 250 to 300 pages. These include Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, among many, many more.

The books on this list are even shorter than those, however. Every single book on this list clocks in under 250 pages, and each of them is more than 50 years old. Even if you have read all of them before, now is as good a time as any to revisit your favorites.

Check out the 15 short classics I've picked out for you below:

'Passing' by Nella Larsen

Page count: 160

Year: 1929

This Harlem Renaissance novel centers on Clare and Irene, two black women who "pass" for white, one of whom is married to a racist white man.

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'The Awakening' by Kate Chopin

Page count: 128

Year: 1899

Edna Pontellier doesn't want to be a wife and mother anymore, so she moves out of her husband's home and goes to live on her own, taking a series of lovers as she does.

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'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe

Page count: 215

Year: 1958

A respected man in a Nigerian Igbo clan sees his attempts to maintain his masculine image backfire as his land becomes colonized by white Europeans in this novel, the first in a trilogy from Man Booker International Prize-winner Chinua Achebe.

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'Their Eyes Were Watching God' by Zora Neale Hurston

Page count: 219

Year: 1937

Returning home after years spent away, Janie Crawford recounts her adventures to a friend, including the tale of how she came to be tried for murder in the death of her late husband.

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'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean Rhys

Page count: 171

Year: 1966

This prequel to Jane Eyre centers on Antoinette Cosway, a young Jamaican woman who marries Edward Rochester and accompanies him to England — where he changes her name to Bertha and locks her in his attic.

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'Night' by Elie Wiesel

Page count: 144

Year: 1958

A brief and fearsome glimpse into the horrors of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel's Night recounts the story of his imprisonment in Auschwitz.

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'We Have Always Lived in the Castle' by Shirley Jackson

Page count: 146

Year: 1962

Years ago, the Blackwood family died at dinner. Eldest daughter Constance was tried for their murder, but found not guilty. Now, she lives with her younger sister, Merricat, and their disabled Uncle Julian in the big, empty house that once belonged to her parents.

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'American Indian Stories and Old Indian Legends' by Zitkala-Ša

Page count: 160

Year: 1921

Including stories from her childhood on the Yankton Indian Reservation and observations on the life of Native Americans in the U.S., Sioux writer Zitkala-Ša's American Indian Stories and Old Indian Legends is a must-read work by a respected Native activist.

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'Cane' by Jean Toomer

Page count: 224

Year: 1923

A series of portraits depicting the lives of African Americans in the early 20th century, Jean Toomer's Cane is a contribution to the literary canon of the Harlem Renaissance that went largely — and unfortunately — overlooked when it was published.

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'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Hansberry

Page count: 151

Year: 1959

The story of a family living in an apartment on the south side of Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun centers on their upcoming move to a white neighborhood, which may be prevented by a white agent.

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'Northanger Abbey' by Jane Austen

Page count: 220

Year: 1818

Obsessed with Gothic literature, Catherine Morland suspects the worst when she visits the titular Northanger Abbey and discovers that its master, General Tilney, is a widower.

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'Where There's Love, There's Hate' by Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo

Page count: 112

Year: 1946

Written by husband-and-wife duo Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, Where There's Love, There's Hate centers on Dr. Huberman, an amateur detective, who investigates a murder at his vacation hotel.

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'Mrs Dalloway' by Virginia Woolf

Page count: 176

Year: 1921

In this brief novel by To the Lighthouse author Virginia Woolf, the eponymous heroine reflects on her life, particularly her choice of a life partner, in the hours leading up to a grand event.

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'O Pioneers!' by Willa Cather

Page count: 176

Year: 1913

When she inherits her father's Nebraska farm, Alexandra throws herself into the work required to make it a success, even as her neighbors have begun to give up the enterprise.

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'Rashōmon and Other Stories' by Ryonosuke Akutagawa

Page count: 96

Year: 1927

The title story of this collection centers on an impoverished servant who, when he is close to giving up on life, meets an old woman who steals hair and clothing from the dead in order to survive.

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