I once worked with someone who didn’t like to read short books. If something was under 200 pages, she felt like she wasn’t getting her money’s worth. People place value on different things, of course, and this particular person and I had pretty unaligned priorities in general, but her dismissal of short books as not being cost-effective will always stick with me, because: What could be more satisfying to someone who prizes economy than a book packing a powerful punch in just 150 pages?
Which is to say, give me all the short books! Especially in the summer, when the only thing I tend to, like, accomplish is reading book after book after book, their words and worlds hitting me like relentless waves — the ideal intellectual pummeling, I think.
Below, some short books (with attempts at appropriately short-ish descriptions) to read if you too want to dip into a variety of universes, committing to them wholly, before dipping out again and into something new.
Revenge of the Scapegoat, Caren Beilin (available here)
This singularly strange novel touches on heartbreak (in the form of generational trauma), foot-ache (in the form of rheumatoid arthritis), and the dark hilarity of the contemporary art scene (“you can get an artist to live at a concentration camp easy, if there’s a super streamlined application process”). Come for the Flaubert jokes, stay for the way Beilin virtuosically balances absurdity with profound emotional resonance.
Mrs. Caliban, Rachel Ingalls (available here)
Have you, like me, been spending more time than usual lately thinking about — idealizing, even — the mysteries of the ocean? If so, this novel — violent, sexy, full of despair, and featuring perhaps the only instance of a convincing romantic lead named Larry — is for you. That said, it might (it should) temper the way in which you mythologize the salty depths. As its very human protagonist Dorothy realizes, when thinking about the place her towering aquatic lover calls home: “The ocean is a world. And a world is not art.” (N.B.: Best read while eating lots of avocados. Maybe in the form of this salad?)
The Sarah Book, Scott McClanahan (available here)
As propulsive as falling off a cliff or falling in love or falling out of love, The Sarah Book is precise and wide-ranging all at once, containing beginnings and endings, a reminder of the piercing beauty and pain of the quotidian. McClanahan captures the importance of paying attention to all the little things better than just about anyone: “But then Sarah smiled. She knew that the only education one needed was this. They should watch someone die and then see someone be born. And then we would know the world.” He doesn’t pretend, though, that knowing the world leads to enlightenment, or even happiness. Still, being aware, no matter how much it hurts, is the unnerving privilege of being human.
Great Granny Webster, Caroline Blackwood (available here)
Accompany the unnamed narrator of this sharp little book, as she bounces around from one eccentric relation to another, and enjoy a delicious descent into a world (the mid-20th century British aristocracy) laced with acid and crumbling not just at its edges, but from its very core. Though Great Granny Webster is unforgettably gelid — a dour miser who loves to see young girls read books, though she barely owns any herself — she is not the novel’s only notable character; for one, there’s the ebullient Aunt Lavinia, who “believes in having ‘fun’” and slides between relationships like “an elegant and expensive eel.” And I don’t know that there’s never been a more compelling anonymous narrator than that of this book, specifically because she’s based on the author, the Lady Caroline Blackwood, who was a muse to many (Lucian Freud, Robert Lowell, etc.), and an inspired artist herself. So, dive in and drink it up!
Autoportrait, Jesse Ball (available here)
Everyone’s tolerance for sitting in discomfort is different, mine could best be described as short but deep. If you too like to be uncomfortable (just not for very long periods of time), then this book is for you. It’s a memoir, aggressively cool even when its candor is squirm-inducing, and while I would always have been partial to this book thanks to Ball’s correct opinion on swimming sidestroke (he’s partial to it though he knows “it is universally maligned”), it contains countless other moments — small, weird, provocative — that have stuck with me, like when he invokes the way that summer “is always coming like a veil of blankness to reset the world.” But it’s his observation about why adults hide the truth from kids — “the reason people think there are things they can’t tell their children is: they themselves and their behavior would be compromised by the explanation” — that I really like, since it also encompasses the reason why so many people aren’t honest with each other, they can’t stand to be seen for who they really are; they need a filter. Autoportrait, despite its clear artistic rigor, feels unfiltered, raw — a sticky treat.
Where Reasons End, Yiyun Li (available here)
This is best read by an ocean, or maybe a saltwater pool, so that you can dunk yourself after reading particular passages, all the better to hide any trickling-down tears. It’s a conversation between a mother and her child, who recently died by suicide. Palpable with grief, Where Reasons End breaks down the boundaries usually imposed around mourning, as if in recognition of the way that even when life can seem so constrained, horrifically capable of simply ceasing to be, the things that make up a life — love and pain — are still there, ready to be infinitely explored.
At Night All Blood Is Black, David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis (available here)
Few books capture the derangement of war, its relentlessness and horrifying rituals, as completely as At Night All Blood Is Black. Its additional insight into an aspect of World War I that is not as widely known as it should be — that of the colonized Senegalese soldiers forced to fight on the side of their French oppressors — adds to the sense of swirling inhumanity, the suffocating realization that there is no redemption to be had. Or, as Moschovakis translates Diop’s words: “That’s war; it’s when God lags behind the music of men, when he can’t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time.”
Foster, Claire Keegan (available here)
I’m sure I didn’t actually hold my breath the entire time I was reading Keegan’s latest, but it felt that way, like if I made any sudden movements, this delicately balanced world would all fall apart. In Foster, a young girl from a chaotic, financially struggling family is sent to live with her aunt and uncle, whose loving consideration for her is a balm, if one tinged with an unnamed sadness. Keegan reveals all the ways that our most intimate struggles are of epic importance, never venturing into sentimentality, just offering a bracing clarity about the value of all the smallest things.
But also…
This short little newsletter feels quite sprawling, so I will keep this short and just highlight five of the best ice creams I’ve had lately (and also say that I am always on the hunt for more ice cream recommendations — transcendence not required, but appreciated!)
The chow nai sundae at Bonnie’s
The nectarine sorbet and polenta gelato at Superiority Burger
The strawberry sundae with candied fennel at Bar Bête
The guava sorbetto at Pazzo Gelato
The peach sorbet at King
The perfect summer cookie exists and it’s this salty lemon shortbread (Alison Roman)
One last short-related thing: I got these shorts. In yellow! (They’re called gold on the site; they’re yellow.) I love them. (Kule)