Hello! Great recommendations. It’s so nice to find a channel that’s not mostly YA and contemporaries (which are great, but I like an array of reviews and books!)! I will definitely check some of these out.
I wrote an essay on Confessions of an English Opium Eater in my Brit Lit II class called "I Love Drugs." As a chronic pain warrior (back and migraine), I am a firm believer in "we do not necessarily get addicted to painkillers; we get addicted to not being in pain." I used my personal medication Sumatriptan as what you'd call my "drug of choice" and to illustrate what it means to "fall in love with the needle." I could have easily fallen into an opiate habit, but thanks to the wisdom of my doctors and the grace of God, I found another class of medications that work and aren't physically addicting. My heart breaks for De Quincy. That could've been me.
OK, I’m really blown away right now. Would you believe that I am a chronic migraine sufferer and my only recourse to relief has been Sumatriptan for the last 12 years? I’ve tried all the preventatives from Topomax to Lamictal to Verapamil and beyond. No luck. My life largely revolves around migraines. I would love to read your essay if you’d be willing to share it. Here’s to solidarity between migraine sufferers.
Leaf by Leaf Wow. I’ve never met a guy who suffers from migraines. Topomax didn’t work for me either and it made me stupid (hence its nickname: Dopomax.) I’ll have to go back and find that essay. I’ve since changed laptops but I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere. We all need beta writers! 🤓
@@simgingergirl I wish it weren't true, but here I am! Yes--Dopomax indeed. Not only did it render all of my cognitive abilities useless; it also suppressed my appetite to the point that I realized I hadn't eaten in two days (I happened to be doing some international travel during those two days, so that added to the lapse). Had to stop that one immediately. What are you doing to manage your migraines presently?
Leaf by Leaf I treat instead of prevent. I take the Sumatriptan auto injection and Maxalt if I have some (I often forget to refill that one.) My grandma said hers didn’t go away until menopause so I’m looking into a hysterectomy... but I don’t think that procedure would do much to help your pain! 🤣
Probably not, haha! Another friend of mine said her migraines stopped after she gave birth. I’m out of luck there, too! Oh, well. Like you I’ve found that Imitrex is my only effective relief. Not sure what I’d do without it. Well, given the nature of the origin of this discussion, maybe I do know what I’d be doing.
I love you man! You always get me so energized to read. I love Snow Country, A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, Beyond Good and Evil, and To The Lighthouse :) I hope those are all short "enough" to count! Will definitely dig into Housekeeping, that little tidbit about her dissertation made it jump right to the top of my to-read list.
Thanks, dude! Great picks! Of those, I have not read Snow Country. I really like Robinson’s writing; it’s very elegant. Housekeeping has delicious sentences. Just let them wash over you.
Bohumil Hrabal "Closely Watched Trains", Nathanael West "Miss Lonelyhearts", HG Wells "The Time Machine", Mikhail Bulgakov "The Heart of a Dog", Robert Louis Stevenson "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde", Kurt Vonnegut "Slapstick", Barry Hines "A Kestrel for a Knave", Albert Camus "The Outsider". My measure of a "short" book is anything with less than 200 pages.
Having recently read Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude, I am keen on everything he's written. Miss Lonelyhearts is one of my favorites! Of the others you listed, I have NOT read the Wells, the Bulgakov, or the Hines, so thanks for these recommendations!
I'm so happy to have found this channel. Amazing list! The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz, Jesus Son by Denis Johnson, The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, The Just by Albert Camus, are few of my favourites.
Ps. I love Robinson, as well, but if Housekeeping had been my first reading of her work, I’m not sure I would’ve read any of her other works. Housekeeping emotionally destroyed me for weeks… for personal and general reasons. Fortunately, I read Gilead first, and fell in love. I’ve read it three times now, and plan to read it every year.
Anything Isaac Bashevis Singer, Story of a Death Foretold. Best instructional of investigative journalism. Love it. Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano. The imperfections of this novel adds to it's significance, in my view. Emerging and disintegrating of literary cult group. Very unique.
Several much less esoteric short books which I enjoy are Ethan Frome and Summer both by Edith Wharton. In each, Wharton’s writing shows beautifully drawn characters experiencing brief moments of happiness in otherwise bleak situations beyond their control. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury simply because of the topic starting with the irony of a fireman with the task of setting books aflame. A Christmas Carol by Dickens because it always brings to mind how each year my Dad so thoroughly enjoyed watching Alistair Sims bringing to life the character of Scrooge. As you noted, Housekeeping is a beautifully written, thought provoking novel. It has much of that watery dreamlike imagery of The Lover by Duras which you described in an earlier video. Robinson writing a dissertation on metaphor is so very interesting.
Ethan Fromme is one of my very favorite books! It was a complete surprise. I thought I’d probably enjoy it but I freaking loved it! I also love Housekeeping and A Christmas Carol, as well! All of these are so wonderful!
I found your channel today and your tastes resonate with me. Thoroughly enjoying your videos. A few short books I adore: The Log of the SS Mrs. Unguentine, Jesus' Son, and The Street of Crocodiles.
Love Steinbeck's powerful little book! I'll have to add The Hole to my list of Japanese novel to read (I'm deliberately trying to ameliorate my lack of knowledge of Japanese literature)--thanks for that!
Thanks! Good stuff. I love Marilynne Robinson. I just read the short novel Tinkers by Paul Harding. He was actually Robinson's creative writing student. The book has some beautiful imagery.
Thanks so much! That’s one of my faves, too! In fact I refuse to watch the Bly Manor adaptation become I have very fond memories tied to reading James’s novella.
I am watching your videos one by one and I love them. Just a humble suggestion: it would be helpful if you added the names and maybe a shopping link for books in the video description. For example, there is something weird about the mad patagonian (that you reviewed in a different video). It looks like that book doesn't even exist!
That is a great suggestion. I actually started doing that fairly recently but I haven’t backfilled my old videos. For The Mad Pat I suggest first emailing the publisher to make sure it’s in stock. www.riverboatbooks.com publisher@riverboatbooks.com
I watched this video as it came out and the task struck me as an impossible one, too many of the books we read end up being short or medium length ones, picking out favorites is quite the task. But I just read Autobiography of Red and thought there's no way anyone who has read this didn't put this on their list so I re-watched this video to see if I had missed it. Then I read Beyond the Epilogue's comment and will second that Schulz is also someone who cant' be recommended enough.. My third and final nomination is Nicholas Mosley's Impossible Object. How this book only got shortlisted for the man booker prize I do not know, it's a beautiful book with language and poetry to rival most, but the structure of this novel is the most perfect thing. So this is also on the short list of novels I list when asked about "perfect novels" which I can only name a handful.
Nice video and recommendations. One of my favorite short books is Alain Badiou's 'In Praise of Love'. And, by the way, Omar Khayyam's poems were originally written in Persian.
Although not a short book, give Lucia Berlin's short story collection entitled A Manual for Cleaning Women. Contains some of the best stories you'll ever read anywhere. Loved your Q&A with Cliff, by the way. Informative. Best, K.A., author of the Chance "Cash" Register blue collar novels. Would be more than happy to send you several, should you be interested in taking a look.
Pps. My favorite short reads mirror some of the other posts, except I didn’t see Dr Jekyll… or Elena Knows. The former is a classic, and the latter is destined to be so.
Good short books: Notes from the Underground, The Crying of Lot 49, In the Penal Colony, The Overcoat, Hell Screen by Akutagawa, The Following Sory by Nooteboom, The Blind Owl by Hedayat
@@kursverzeichnis1297 Added to the list (of recommendations I'm getting on this channel)! I'm going to have to start making videos out of reading books you all recommend.
Interesting choices, Chris. Love the story about looking for the arabic book. Some short ones based on scanning my bookshelf: Point Omega - Don DeLillo Free Will - Sam Harris Time's Arrow - Martin Amis Wolf Whistle - Lewis Nordan Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan Night Soul - Joseph McElroy
I read Point Omega a long time ago on a plane I remember being struck by it. Time for a re-read, as I can’t remember anything. Great list! I’ve got some new recommendations now!
Great choices, especially the superb 'Invisible Cities' by Calvino. Have you read 'Einstein's Dreams' by Alan Lightman, very much in the same vein and one of my absolute favorite books.
@@timkjazz Sorry for the year delay in my reply lol. I never got a notification. I have read Lightman's little book. I enjoyed it but I think it pales in comparison to Invisible Cities. And I couldn't enjoy his other one about the creation of the universe. Mr G, was it called?
Here is my list from 2019 :- Childhood, Youth, Dependency - Tove Ditlevsem(trilogy), The Hunting Gun - Yasushi Inoue, The House-keeper and Professor - Ogawa Yoko, The Untouched House - Willem Frederik Hermans, The Cemetery In Barnes - Gabriel Josipovici, Chess Story - Stefan Zweig, Poonachi - Perumal Murugan, Trick - Domenico Starnone
Thanks for helping me keep my TBR healthy! The only one I’ve read is Zweig’s Chess Story, which makes this an excellent list. I’m adding all your choices now.
I’ve had a copy of the Barnes for years. One day it will just happen. I’ll pick it up and read it. The other has been off and on my radar. I grow weary and wary of Pulitzers. Thanks for the recommendations!
@@JohnZaabi hahaha. I will have a look at those two and perhaps add them to my ever expanding TBR. Another short book favourite of mine, which I've read since this comment, is Eimar McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing - incredibly dark subject matter (illness, grief, paedophilia/sexual abuse, promiscuity) but ultimately, a rewarding read that tells of a young woman's desperate search for her sense of identity.
@@andrewrussell2845 hi Andrew, I'm not too sure I'd want to read that one you suggest, it sounds like The Bell Jar on steroids! About Identity, there's a novella by Milan Kundera conveniently called "Identity", it's a mere 100-odd pages long. It's more of a philosophical undertoned type of storytelling... also Girl Interrupted with Brangelina, if you care for Hollywood tie-ups!
hey Andrew it does sadden me that this guy, who's uploading fantastic content about our rich cultural background, barely surpasses 5,000 subscribers whereas those idiotic tik-tokers can show for themselves millions of zombified followers, with nothing to say except for "sick," "it's dope," and stupid lingo of that sort. What is this phenomenon, is it like this worldwide? I'm in Argentina, people are incredibly stupified here as well, but give us a break, our national average income is only US$250 per month, so yes, not much on display for now. However, it startles me that wealthy nations are facing similar difficulties with an increasing amout of people being dumbed by media or whatever, make room for books, concepts, debates!!! I was checking Russell Brand´s channel, he's done this podcast about the mental health crisis, are goverments and policy makers unaware that books (the cultural industry) is a good remedy (or some kind of solace) for the burgeoning mental suffering people are undergoing? Why not foster these industries? Why are people massively opting for the Kardashians instead of Borges? - or even as well as, nothing wrong with light entertainment- Sad
@@LeafbyLeaf Sorry I forgot this one: Bench Press by Sven Lindquvist..... all about weightlifting and the nature of um, everything. Or something. Cheers!
I promise I'm working on it! This is by far my biggest request on here. I'm trying to decide whether to do a raw-shot video with my humble little camera OR pay a videographer friend of mine to bring his rig over and make it much more aesthetically pleasing.
Very interesting selection of books. Thanks for the recommendations! Love Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts! Some of my favourite short books are Ice by Anna Kavan, The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato, The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria, Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger, My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel, and The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
Whoa! I think you just won the award got mentioning the most books I’ve never read. I’ve heard about Ice many times. But the others I am not familiar with at all. Please keep dropping these titles!
I second the choice of De Quincey, his English Mail-Coach is shorter and perhaps even better. (Sir Thomas Browne and Robert Burton were far from being De Quincey's contemporaries, though he was strongly influenced by them). I would add a few more candidates, anyone who has read them might offer their thoughts: My favorite short novel is Hunger by Knut Hamsun, which can be read at a single sitting. Other choices: Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood; Concrete by Thomas Bernhard; The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton; and, of the many fine short novels by J G Ballard, High Rise.
I’d like an update on this project, but with a focus on short fiction/short novels. Essays and lyric poems don’t count, as their relative brevity is almost built into the form.
@@LeafbyLeaf Thank YOU! I would have left a longer comment, but I worried the sell-by date had passed. I have had some nice experiences with short fiction of late, and we seem to be in a golden age of short histories/monographs. I can’t vouch for them all, but I would like to hear your take of works like Gaitskill’s THIS IS PLEASURE, Catherine Lacey’s PEW, Sayaka Murata’s CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN.
Thanks for putting those on my radar! This year I’ve been trying to focus on shorter books, so a lot of my video since January are on shorties. I just read S. D. Chrostowska’s slim book of stories, A Cage for Every Child. Highly recommended if you like Schwob, Borges, et al.
Briliant "episode". [A downward thumb? Is there nowhere evil is not present?]. I was curious about Gombrowicz--Cosmos is my favorite of his--since you went to Poland. I also thought you might be interested in a Marilynne Robinson anecdote: one day in a workshop she spoke to the women in class, admonishing them that they must try to write men, perhaps even at times from a male perspective. Then she paused...thought, obviously, of Housekeeping, a book with no men in it, and said, "You've seen how I handled the problem..."
Yeah, I also got one on my Nonfiction Recommendations. I think it means the person thinks your picks should align with their own. Curiously: I never see an actual comment with why it’s a bad video. I love Robinson-such wit. For the last five years, I’ve been traveling to Poland about 5x/year and I’ve come across great literature, in minding Gombrowicz and Mrożek. I’ve got a friend there who may be helping me with a Polish lit video soon!
When you get a chance have a look at Antoni Lange - bizarre Polish poet, polyglot, science fictioner, etc. who died in poverty still scribbling weird things. In other words, a perfect poet 😄😸
@@LeafbyLeaf I mean, my book is only 113 pages, give or take. And I'm selling it on Amazon for 10 dollars. Am I charging too much? Asking for advice... Is all. And is it long enough?
Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts is a mere 60pp and sublime! If this is a self-published work of fiction and it isn’t selling as well as you want, I would consider lowering the price. But I don’t know a lot about marketing books, so please pair my advice with a grain of salt.
Haven't read it yet but will tackle it once I finish White Noise but: "The Invention of Morel" by Bioy Casarez, Borges said about the book" I don't think it would be exaggerated to call it perfect" so yeah, must be good lol, thx for the recs!
I thought the same thing until I read it. Unfortunately it didn't do anything for me. Casarez and Borges were friends who also collaborated on projects together so maybe that explains the hyperbolic blurb.
No, I don't have one about the shelves themselves (themshelves?)--but they are not IKEA. They are built-ins that we designed when we built the house back in 2017. :)
Was it Roger Bacon? the guy who wrote Anatomy of Melancholy, I mean. Hmm… short books I love. It's been so long since I read a short book I loved. Hafiz - Gardens of Heaven and other Poems [from Dover Publications] has a poem I absolutely adore towards the back Japanese Death Poems - coll. by Yoel Hoffmann is another that's quite spectacular. Monks' poems written near the moment of death? How wild. Honestly, it's not often I pick up a short book. The only ones really on my to-read list are these Ravicka series books by Renee Gladman that sound quite interesting [from Dorothy, a small publishing house, or "project" as I think they call themselves, I'm not sure.]
My two favorite short novels or novellas would probably be The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Garcia-Marquez and Absalom!Absalom! by Faulkner though I don’t know if that one counts!
Short book recommendations: 'Jesus' Son' - Denis Johnson 'Nightwood' - Djuna Barnes 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept' - Elizabeth Smart 'Outer Dark' - Cormac McCarthy 'Child of God' - Cormac McCarthy
@@LeafbyLeaf Yes, Bonsai is great. I’m new to your channel, so I don’t know if you’ve talked about Bioy Casares. If you like Borges, you’ll probably love Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel. The best (very) short book I’ve read this year is Cecil Taylor, by César Aira, although I’m not sure if there’s an English translation available. If you haven’t, you should also check out Juan Rulfo’s books (there’s only two).
I’ve read all of these except Bonsai and Cecil Taylor. I have a video on Casares’ “Morel” on the channel! Love, love, love Borges. I also have some Jorge Barón Biza coming up in a few weeks. Thanks for more recommendations!
@@LeafbyLeaf Oh, I’ll look for the video on Morel. It is good to hear that there’s an English translation for Barón Biza’s book, it is so difficult to find copy of it in Spanish that I wouldn’t have thought there’d be one. I’ll explore your channel more in depth before I make more recommendations. And thank you, these videos are great.
Chris, are the books behind you all yours? Where do you live? I'd like to visit your library so much. I'm Marinella from pavia, italy. I madly love american postmodernist writers.
They are indeed all mine! This is my custom library built about two years ago. I’m in the eastern US. Who are some of your favorite American postmodernists?
@@LeafbyLeaf, DFW is my personal god. In these days I'm reading my second pynchon novel "gravity's rainbow"(yesterday i began the third part), after the crying of lot 49. I love don de lillo( mao II, the white noise and underworld) paul auster and Cormac mccarthy(almost everything), john williams(stoner and butcher's crossing) Jennifer egan and ben lerner. After pynchon, i want to read some vollmann novels( i've got his debut novel "you bright and risen angels" his most acclaimed work"central europe" and "his masterpiece "fathers and crows". Do you have any piece of advice? What 's your Name, your age and what are you doing for a living? I m a new follower of yours. Maybe we can email each other. This is my email: vlamaj2019@yahoo.com thanks for everything. See you soon. Marinella
Those are some great picks! I have a video just on Vollmann, and one on Williams's STONER, if you'd like to check them out. Unfortunately, I don't really use email much these days, so I'd rather flow all communication through the channel. Thanks for subscribing and stopping by!
Borges? Tango? (we claim tango, by the by), what next, "dulce de leche", Gardel, Maradona, Pole Francis, Maxima of the Netherlands!?? LOL . You're on your way to becoming an honorary citizenship of Argentina, a true Argenteeen (I love the way you pronounce it - kind of old fashioned), Le petit prince c'est assez unique, ce connard! Also, what do you think about Julian Barnes? "A Sense of an Ending" is very short and convulted, but effective. Robert Burton wrote the Melancholy one, or was it the Smashing Pumpkins, not too sure...
Also The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, my fave mini reference. Ends 2000. So wish it would be updated. Someone who reads a lot of the good stuff could do it 😉
Seriously, you've already done the work, all those colored stickies on all those books. Better than Food could too. Literally everyone who follows y'all would want it. Or is it all y'all?
Hello! Great recommendations. It’s so nice to find a channel that’s not mostly YA and contemporaries (which are great, but I like an array of reviews and books!)! I will definitely check some of these out.
Gem Hey there! Thanks so much! Hope to hear back from you about them.
I love your channel, man. Thanks for the amazing content and inspiration. Good Books and Good People are the best.
Really nice of you to say! Glad you're enjoying. All my best to you!
I wrote an essay on Confessions of an English Opium Eater in my Brit Lit II class called "I Love Drugs." As a chronic pain warrior (back and migraine), I am a firm believer in "we do not necessarily get addicted to painkillers; we get addicted to not being in pain." I used my personal medication Sumatriptan as what you'd call my "drug of choice" and to illustrate what it means to "fall in love with the needle." I could have easily fallen into an opiate habit, but thanks to the wisdom of my doctors and the grace of God, I found another class of medications that work and aren't physically addicting. My heart breaks for De Quincy. That could've been me.
OK, I’m really blown away right now. Would you believe that I am a chronic migraine sufferer and my only recourse to relief has been Sumatriptan for the last 12 years? I’ve tried all the preventatives from Topomax to Lamictal to Verapamil and beyond. No luck. My life largely revolves around migraines. I would love to read your essay if you’d be willing to share it. Here’s to solidarity between migraine sufferers.
Leaf by Leaf Wow. I’ve never met a guy who suffers from migraines. Topomax didn’t work for me either and it made me stupid (hence its nickname: Dopomax.) I’ll have to go back and find that essay. I’ve since changed laptops but I’m sure I’ve got it somewhere. We all need beta writers! 🤓
@@simgingergirl I wish it weren't true, but here I am! Yes--Dopomax indeed. Not only did it render all of my cognitive abilities useless; it also suppressed my appetite to the point that I realized I hadn't eaten in two days (I happened to be doing some international travel during those two days, so that added to the lapse). Had to stop that one immediately. What are you doing to manage your migraines presently?
Leaf by Leaf I treat instead of prevent. I take the Sumatriptan auto injection and Maxalt if I have some (I often forget to refill that one.) My grandma said hers didn’t go away until menopause so I’m looking into a hysterectomy... but I don’t think that procedure would do much to help your pain! 🤣
Probably not, haha! Another friend of mine said her migraines stopped after she gave birth. I’m out of luck there, too! Oh, well. Like you I’ve found that Imitrex is my only effective relief. Not sure what I’d do without it. Well, given the nature of the origin of this discussion, maybe I do know what I’d be doing.
I love you man! You always get me so energized to read. I love Snow Country, A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man, Beyond Good and Evil, and To The Lighthouse :) I hope those are all short "enough" to count! Will definitely dig into Housekeeping, that little tidbit about her dissertation made it jump right to the top of my to-read list.
Thanks, dude! Great picks! Of those, I have not read Snow Country. I really like Robinson’s writing; it’s very elegant. Housekeeping has delicious sentences. Just let them wash over you.
Bohumil Hrabal "Closely Watched Trains", Nathanael West "Miss Lonelyhearts", HG Wells "The Time Machine", Mikhail Bulgakov "The Heart of a Dog", Robert Louis Stevenson "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde", Kurt Vonnegut "Slapstick", Barry Hines "A Kestrel for a Knave", Albert Camus "The Outsider". My measure of a "short" book is anything with less than 200 pages.
Having recently read Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude, I am keen on everything he's written. Miss Lonelyhearts is one of my favorites! Of the others you listed, I have NOT read the Wells, the Bulgakov, or the Hines, so thanks for these recommendations!
I’ve got that Borges volume. It’s great. Very comfortable to hold, as well.
I'm so happy to have found this channel. Amazing list! The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector, Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz, Jesus Son by Denis Johnson, The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Young Man with a Horn by Dorothy Baker, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, The Just by Albert Camus, are few of my favourites.
Thanks! Great picks! Glad to see Gombowicz. I have videos on Lispector and Bioy Casares up here.
Will chk out for sure. One q: Camu's The Just...does it have any other name?
Hi! I just discovered your channel, and I’m so glad I did. Great content.
Welcome! Thanks so much!
Ps. I love Robinson, as well, but if Housekeeping had been my first reading of her work, I’m not sure I would’ve read any of her other works. Housekeeping emotionally destroyed me for weeks… for personal and general reasons. Fortunately, I read Gilead first, and fell in love. I’ve read it three times now, and plan to read it every year.
I could see that with Housekeeping (and I’m sorry for your wounds). What did you think of Jack?
I loved Autoportrait, glad to hear you mention it!
Right on! Have you read any of Levé’s other work?
I would recommend that you try Willa Cather's "My Mortal Enemy." It is a great short novel, and probably one of the least read in the Cather canon.
I've not read that one! I've only read O, Pioneers! and Death Comes for the Archbishop. Thanks so much!
The Death of Ivan Illych-Tolstoy.
Indeed, a great work, although I almost favor his story “Master and Man” better (though I recognize that isn’t technically a short book).
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Good Benito by Alan Lightman
Two of my favorite books of all time
I love Alan Lightman! Last one I read was The Accidental Universe.
Still itching to get into some Denis Johnson-I know I’ll love it.
Ernesto Sabato’s The Tunnel, it seems, would be right up your alley. Surprised it didn’t make the list.
I actually haven’t read it, but several others recommended it. Thanks for helping bump it up in my priority queue!
Anything Isaac Bashevis Singer, Story of a Death Foretold. Best instructional of investigative journalism. Love it. Savage Detectives, Roberto Balano. The imperfections of this novel adds to it's significance, in my view. Emerging and disintegrating of literary cult group. Very unique.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: 'CHRONICAL' OF A DEATH FORETOLD.
Job well done. I’m always looking for a good book to read.
My pleasure!
Several much less esoteric short books which I enjoy are Ethan Frome and Summer both by Edith Wharton. In each, Wharton’s writing shows beautifully drawn characters experiencing brief moments of happiness in otherwise bleak situations beyond their control. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury simply because of the topic starting with the irony of a fireman with the task of setting books aflame. A Christmas Carol by Dickens because it always brings to mind how each year my Dad so thoroughly enjoyed watching Alistair Sims bringing to life the character of Scrooge. As you noted, Housekeeping is a beautifully written, thought provoking novel. It has much of that watery dreamlike imagery of The Lover by Duras which you described in an earlier video. Robinson writing a dissertation on metaphor is so very interesting.
Great picks! I am well acquainted with Wharton. Spend time during my MA studying her.
Ethan Fromme is one of my very favorite books! It was a complete surprise. I thought I’d probably enjoy it but I freaking loved it! I also love Housekeeping and A Christmas Carol, as well! All of these are so wonderful!
Ethan Fromme is indeed wonderful!
I found your channel today and your tastes resonate with me. Thoroughly enjoying your videos.
A few short books I adore: The Log of the SS Mrs. Unguentine, Jesus' Son, and The Street of Crocodiles.
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the videos!
Bruno Schultz is wonderful!
Obvious choices are "The Great Gatsby" and "Of Mice and Men" but much less obvious would be Hiroko Oyamada's "The Hole" 👍
Love Steinbeck's powerful little book! I'll have to add The Hole to my list of Japanese novel to read (I'm deliberately trying to ameliorate my lack of knowledge of Japanese literature)--thanks for that!
Thanks! Good stuff. I love Marilynne Robinson. I just read the short novel Tinkers by Paul Harding. He was actually Robinson's creative writing student. The book has some beautiful imagery.
I, too, adored _Tinkers_ ! My 10th-anniversary hardcover has a generous foreword by Robinson herself.
I love this channel!
I’m a lover of big books, but one of my favorite little ones is The Turn of the Screw, Henry James.
Thanks so much!
That’s one of my faves, too! In fact I refuse to watch the Bly Manor adaptation become I have very fond memories tied to reading James’s novella.
I am watching your videos one by one and I love them. Just a humble suggestion: it would be helpful if you added the names and maybe a shopping link for books in the video description. For example, there is something weird about the mad patagonian (that you reviewed in a different video). It looks like that book doesn't even exist!
That is a great suggestion. I actually started doing that fairly recently but I haven’t backfilled my old videos. For The Mad Pat I suggest first emailing the publisher to make sure it’s in stock. www.riverboatbooks.com
publisher@riverboatbooks.com
@@LeafbyLeaf Thanks!
I'm adding a LOT of books from your videos onto my goodreads in the WANT TO READ section. Thank you!
Excellent! I love to keep people's TBR queues fat and healthy. :)
I watched this video as it came out and the task struck me as an impossible one, too many of the books we read end up being short or medium length ones, picking out favorites is quite the task. But I just read Autobiography of Red and thought there's no way anyone who has read this didn't put this on their list so I re-watched this video to see if I had missed it. Then I read Beyond the Epilogue's comment and will second that Schulz is also someone who cant' be recommended enough.. My third and final nomination is Nicholas Mosley's Impossible Object. How this book only got shortlisted for the man booker prize I do not know, it's a beautiful book with language and poetry to rival most, but the structure of this novel is the most perfect thing. So this is also on the short list of novels I list when asked about "perfect novels" which I can only name a handful.
I’m so glad you stopped back by! I have not read any of those three books so I’m going to acquire them and read them immediately!
Finally read Autobiography of Red! ua-cam.com/video/jnoRFBoTcnE/v-deo.html
Nice video and recommendations. One of my favorite short books is Alain Badiou's 'In Praise of Love'. And, by the way, Omar Khayyam's poems were originally written in Persian.
Thanks! I’m putting that one down on my recommendations spreadsheet. And thanks for the correction on Khayyam!
In first grade, I had a maroon sweatshirt with yellow writing. "The moving finger writes...."
Although not a short book, give Lucia Berlin's short story collection entitled A Manual for Cleaning Women. Contains some of the best stories you'll ever read anywhere. Loved your Q&A with Cliff, by the way. Informative. Best, K.A., author of the Chance "Cash" Register blue collar novels. Would be more than happy to send you several, should you be interested in taking a look.
Thanks so much! You know, several people have been mentioning that Berlin collection as a must-read. I think it's time I do something about this!
"Where I Was" by James Kelman. He's so great, I can see why no one's heard of him.
Thanks for making me aware!
@@LeafbyLeaf Excellent channel mate! Keep the torch burning!
Please consider adding the books you discuss to the description on the video.
Great idea. Thank you!
Pps. My favorite short reads mirror some of the other posts, except I didn’t see Dr Jekyll… or Elena Knows. The former is a classic, and the latter is destined to be so.
Good short books: Notes from the Underground, The Crying of Lot 49, In the Penal Colony, The Overcoat, Hell Screen by Akutagawa, The Following Sory by Nooteboom, The Blind Owl by Hedayat
Ah, why didn’t I include Lot 49?! You’ve given me some new ones. One of the reasons I started this channel-to get in touch with more books!
@@LeafbyLeaf If you didn't know Akutagawa: He also wrote In the Bamboo Grove, on which Kurosawa's movie Rashoumon is based.
@@kursverzeichnis1297 Added to the list (of recommendations I'm getting on this channel)! I'm going to have to start making videos out of reading books you all recommend.
Interesting choices, Chris. Love the story about looking for the arabic book.
Some short ones based on scanning my bookshelf:
Point Omega - Don DeLillo
Free Will - Sam Harris
Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
Wolf Whistle - Lewis Nordan
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury
The Dragons of Eden - Carl Sagan
Night Soul - Joseph McElroy
I read Point Omega a long time ago on a plane I remember being struck by it. Time for a re-read, as I can’t remember anything. Great list! I’ve got some new recommendations now!
Great choices, especially the superb 'Invisible Cities' by Calvino. Have you read 'Einstein's Dreams' by Alan Lightman, very much in the same vein and one of my absolute favorite books.
Dandelion Wine is great! I read it during summer, which I was grateful for, as it fitted perfectly with the weather.
@@timkjazz Sorry for the year delay in my reply lol. I never got a notification. I have read Lightman's little book. I enjoyed it but I think it pales in comparison to Invisible Cities. And I couldn't enjoy his other one about the creation of the universe. Mr G, was it called?
@@cretekastos6903 Wonderful!
Here is my list from 2019 :- Childhood, Youth, Dependency - Tove Ditlevsem(trilogy), The Hunting Gun - Yasushi Inoue, The House-keeper and Professor - Ogawa Yoko, The Untouched House - Willem Frederik Hermans, The Cemetery In Barnes - Gabriel Josipovici, Chess Story - Stefan Zweig, Poonachi - Perumal Murugan, Trick - Domenico Starnone
Thanks for helping me keep my TBR healthy! The only one I’ve read is Zweig’s Chess Story, which makes this an excellent list. I’m adding all your choices now.
@@LeafbyLeaf Happy reading!
Indeed!
The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz are two of my favourite short books.
I’ve had a copy of the Barnes for years. One day it will just happen. I’ll pick it up and read it. The other has been off and on my radar. I grow weary and wary of Pulitzers. Thanks for the recommendations!
WOW I just recommended Sense of an Ending without reading this comment first, what are the odds? Tokyo Blues and Sputnik are great, too (by Hurakami)
@@JohnZaabi hahaha. I will have a look at those two and perhaps add them to my ever expanding TBR. Another short book favourite of mine, which I've read since this comment, is Eimar McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing - incredibly dark subject matter (illness, grief, paedophilia/sexual abuse, promiscuity) but ultimately, a rewarding read that tells of a young woman's desperate search for her sense of identity.
@@andrewrussell2845 hi Andrew, I'm not too sure I'd want to read that one you suggest, it sounds like The Bell Jar on steroids! About Identity, there's a novella by Milan Kundera conveniently called "Identity", it's a mere 100-odd pages long. It's more of a philosophical undertoned type of storytelling... also Girl Interrupted with Brangelina, if you care for Hollywood tie-ups!
hey Andrew it does sadden me that this guy, who's uploading fantastic content about our rich cultural background, barely surpasses 5,000 subscribers whereas those idiotic tik-tokers can show for themselves millions of zombified followers, with nothing to say except for "sick," "it's dope," and stupid lingo of that sort. What is this phenomenon, is it like this worldwide? I'm in Argentina, people are incredibly stupified here as well, but give us a break, our national average income is only US$250 per month, so yes, not much on display for now. However, it startles me that wealthy nations are facing similar difficulties with an increasing amout of people being dumbed by media or whatever, make room for books, concepts, debates!!! I was checking Russell Brand´s channel, he's done this podcast about the mental health crisis, are goverments and policy makers unaware that books (the cultural industry) is a good remedy (or some kind of solace) for the burgeoning mental suffering people are undergoing? Why not foster these industries? Why are people massively opting for the Kardashians instead of Borges? - or even as well as, nothing wrong with light entertainment- Sad
yess miss lonelyhearts and day of the locust combo book i have rocks
🙌🙌🙌
Last Night at The Lobster, Train Dreams, Post Office, The True Deceiver, and btw, I love short books and I cannot lie...
Hahah! The best short book I recently read was Too Loud a Solitude (I did a video if you're interested).
@@LeafbyLeaf I am, and I will check that out.
@@LeafbyLeaf Sorry I forgot this one: Bench Press by Sven Lindquvist..... all about weightlifting and the nature of um, everything. Or something. Cheers!
Hahaha-love your description!
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
The Messiah of Stockholm - Ozick
The Mouth of the Whale-Sjon
Jacob Von Gunter-Walser
Absent City-Piglia
Thanks so much for these--amazingly, I haven't read any of them! Of the writers, I've only read Ozick's essays. Really appreciate this!
You will not be disappointed. Looking forward to your thoughts/ reactions. Loved Ozick collection of essays.
I'm watching some of your videos once again. When will you make a bookshelf tour?
I promise I'm working on it! This is by far my biggest request on here. I'm trying to decide whether to do a raw-shot video with my humble little camera OR pay a videographer friend of mine to bring his rig over and make it much more aesthetically pleasing.
The Man Who Tapped The Secrets Of The Universe by Glenn Clark, The Stranger by Albert Camus oh and The Torrents of Spring.
You’ll find L’Étranger in my Favorite Opening Line video. As for the other two, these are new to me, so-thanks!
Very interesting selection of books. Thanks for the recommendations! Love Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts! Some of my favourite short books are Ice by Anna Kavan, The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato, The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria, Katalin Street by Magda Szabó, Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, Suite for Barbara Loden by Nathalie Léger, My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel, and The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.
Whoa! I think you just won the award got mentioning the most books I’ve never read. I’ve heard about Ice many times. But the others I am not familiar with at all. Please keep dropping these titles!
Leaf by Leaf I’m glad to hear that! 😄 I mainly read translated fiction so I have a lot of relatively unknown books to recommend.
thank you for the suggestions!
No problem! Check back soon because I’m posting part two of this one.
I second the choice of De Quincey, his English Mail-Coach is shorter and perhaps even better. (Sir Thomas Browne and Robert Burton were far from being De Quincey's contemporaries, though he was strongly influenced by them).
I would add a few more candidates, anyone who has read them might offer their thoughts:
My favorite short novel is Hunger by Knut Hamsun, which can be read at a single sitting. Other choices: Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood; Concrete by Thomas Bernhard; The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton; and, of the many fine short novels by J G Ballard, High Rise.
I’d like an update on this project, but with a focus on short fiction/short novels. Essays and lyric poems don’t count, as their relative brevity is almost built into the form.
Thanks for bumping this one. I definitely have a list of great short books!
@@LeafbyLeaf Thank YOU! I would have left a longer comment, but I worried the sell-by date had passed. I have had some nice experiences with short fiction of late, and we seem to be in a golden age of short histories/monographs. I can’t vouch for them all, but I would like to hear your take of works like Gaitskill’s THIS IS PLEASURE, Catherine Lacey’s PEW, Sayaka Murata’s CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN.
Thanks for putting those on my radar! This year I’ve been trying to focus on shorter books, so a lot of my video since January are on shorties. I just read S. D. Chrostowska’s slim book of stories, A Cage for Every Child. Highly recommended if you like Schwob, Borges, et al.
Briliant "episode". [A downward thumb? Is there nowhere evil is not present?]. I was curious about Gombrowicz--Cosmos is my favorite of his--since you went to Poland. I also thought you might be interested in a Marilynne Robinson anecdote: one day in a workshop she spoke to the women in class, admonishing them that they must try to write men, perhaps even at times from a male perspective. Then she paused...thought, obviously, of Housekeeping, a book with no men in it, and said, "You've seen how I handled the problem..."
Yeah, I also got one on my Nonfiction Recommendations. I think it means the person thinks your picks should align with their own. Curiously: I never see an actual comment with why it’s a bad video. I love Robinson-such wit. For the last five years, I’ve been traveling to Poland about 5x/year and I’ve come across great literature, in minding Gombrowicz and Mrożek. I’ve got a friend there who may be helping me with a Polish lit video soon!
When you get a chance have a look at Antoni Lange - bizarre Polish poet, polyglot, science fictioner, etc. who died in poverty still scribbling weird things. In other words, a perfect poet 😄😸
@@jackseney7906 thanks
Nice list. I would offer "Snow White" by Barthelme and the three novellas that became Auster's "New York Trilogy".
Have you read Cesar Aira? I highly recommend Episode in the Life of a Landscape Artist and Artforum.
I have The Hare but have yet to read it. Aira is definitely on the list!
Literally every single one of these books are (somehow) bigger than the book I wrote. I need to start practicing
Not necessarily. There’s a place for books of all lengths.
@@LeafbyLeaf I mean, my book is only 113 pages, give or take. And I'm selling it on Amazon for 10 dollars. Am I charging too much? Asking for advice... Is all. And is it long enough?
Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts is a mere 60pp and sublime! If this is a self-published work of fiction and it isn’t selling as well as you want, I would consider lowering the price. But I don’t know a lot about marketing books, so please pair my advice with a grain of salt.
Haven't read it yet but will tackle it once I finish White Noise but: "The Invention of Morel" by Bioy Casarez, Borges said about the book" I don't think it would be exaggerated to call it perfect" so yeah, must be good lol, thx for the recs!
Um, yeah, if Borges approved it, it could be a phone book and I'm on it!
I thought the same thing until I read it. Unfortunately it didn't do anything for me. Casarez and Borges were friends who also collaborated on projects together so maybe that explains the hyperbolic blurb.
@@TheCollidescopePodcast I've read another book by him and it was very good, will have to check it out myself
I’m getting the NYRB paperback because those are so irresistible.
Do you have a video about your book shelves by chance and what you used? Are they IKEA Kallax or Billy? Thank you.
No, I don't have one about the shelves themselves (themshelves?)--but they are not IKEA. They are built-ins that we designed when we built the house back in 2017. :)
Was it Roger Bacon? the guy who wrote Anatomy of Melancholy, I mean.
Hmm… short books I love. It's been so long since I read a short book I loved.
Hafiz - Gardens of Heaven and other Poems [from Dover Publications] has a poem I absolutely adore towards the back
Japanese Death Poems - coll. by Yoel Hoffmann is another that's quite spectacular. Monks' poems written near the moment of death? How wild.
Honestly, it's not often I pick up a short book. The only ones really on my to-read list are these Ravicka series books by Renee Gladman that sound quite interesting [from Dorothy, a small publishing house, or "project" as I think they call themselves, I'm not sure.]
Can’t believe I couldn’t remember Robert Burton! One of my favorite fat non-fiction books. Thanks for all of these. New recommendations for me!
@@LeafbyLeaf BURTON! I knew it was a last name I confuse with another famous writer
My two favorite short novels or novellas would probably be The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Garcia-Marquez and Absalom!Absalom! by Faulkner though I don’t know if that one counts!
All three of those are indeed great books! But, yeah, Absalom may not count as a short book despite its short page count. What a whopper!
@@LeafbyLeaf My thoughts exactly. Though I’d love to see you do a video on Absalom! Absalom!
That is on deck for sure!
@@LeafbyLeaf looking forward to it 👌🏼
Short book recommendations:
'Jesus' Son' - Denis Johnson
'Nightwood' - Djuna Barnes
'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept' - Elizabeth Smart
'Outer Dark' - Cormac McCarthy
'Child of God' - Cormac McCarthy
Great recommendations! I loved Outer Dark. Keep putting off Nightwood because I don't want it to be over. :-P
I’m extremely surprised that no one mentioned the great gatsby here..............🙁🙁🙁
I do have a video on TGG out here, for what it’s worth!
Bonsai by Zambra
Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop
Ooooo how I love book recommendations! Adding yours to my master list. I’ll let you know when I post about these. Thanks!
@@LeafbyLeaf Yes, Bonsai is great. I’m new to your channel, so I don’t know if you’ve talked about Bioy Casares. If you like Borges, you’ll probably love Bioy Casares’ The Invention of Morel. The best (very) short book I’ve read this year is Cecil Taylor, by César Aira, although I’m not sure if there’s an English translation available. If you haven’t, you should also check out Juan Rulfo’s books (there’s only two).
I’ve read all of these except Bonsai and Cecil Taylor. I have a video on Casares’ “Morel” on the channel! Love, love, love Borges. I also have some Jorge Barón Biza coming up in a few weeks. Thanks for more recommendations!
ua-cam.com/video/x1xJwnXuzm0/v-deo.html
@@LeafbyLeaf Oh, I’ll look for the video on Morel. It is good to hear that there’s an English translation for Barón Biza’s book, it is so difficult to find copy of it in Spanish that I wouldn’t have thought there’d be one. I’ll explore your channel more in depth before I make more recommendations. And thank you, these videos are great.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich-Tolstoy; Junky-Burroughs; A Sport and a Pastime -Salter; Fear and Trembling- Kierkegaard; Nausea-Sartre.
Great choices!
Old man and the sea and as a man thinketh.
Great choices! Can’t remember which video it is, but I talk about As a Man Thinketh (maybe last year’s nonfiction November video).
Chris, are the books behind you all yours? Where do you live? I'd like to visit your library so much. I'm Marinella from pavia, italy. I madly love american postmodernist writers.
They are indeed all mine! This is my custom library built about two years ago. I’m in the eastern US. Who are some of your favorite American postmodernists?
@@LeafbyLeaf, DFW is my personal god. In these days I'm reading my second pynchon novel "gravity's rainbow"(yesterday i began the third part), after the crying of lot 49. I love don de lillo( mao II, the white noise and underworld) paul auster and Cormac mccarthy(almost everything), john williams(stoner and butcher's crossing) Jennifer egan and ben lerner. After pynchon, i want to read some vollmann novels( i've got his debut novel "you bright and risen angels" his most acclaimed work"central europe" and "his masterpiece "fathers and crows". Do you have any piece of advice? What 's your Name, your age and what are you doing for a living? I m a new follower of yours. Maybe we can email each other. This is my email: vlamaj2019@yahoo.com thanks for everything. See you soon. Marinella
Those are some great picks! I have a video just on Vollmann, and one on Williams's STONER, if you'd like to check them out. Unfortunately, I don't really use email much these days, so I'd rather flow all communication through the channel. Thanks for subscribing and stopping by!
Borges? Tango? (we claim tango, by the by), what next, "dulce de leche", Gardel, Maradona, Pole Francis, Maxima of the Netherlands!?? LOL . You're on your way to becoming an honorary citizenship of Argentina, a true Argenteeen (I love the way you pronounce it - kind of old fashioned), Le petit prince c'est assez unique, ce connard! Also, what do you think about Julian Barnes? "A Sense of an Ending" is very short and convulted, but effective. Robert Burton wrote the Melancholy one, or was it the Smashing Pumpkins, not too sure...
Hahaha! I love that! I have not read Barnes yet, but I do have that book. Maybe soon.
Animal Farm is the greatest short book of all time IMO
Definitely a great one!
…and The Overcoat - Gogol
You've just reminded me that I need to do some videos specifically on short stores! And, yes, "The Overcoat" is one of the greats!
A short book that I’ve read recently that I quite enjoyed was Gratitude by Oliver Sacks.
Nice recommendation! I just read through the copy and a little of the first pages. Then I bought the nice little hardcover. Thank you!
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders.
I need to explore more of his fictional work.
Also The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction, my fave mini reference. Ends 2000. So wish it would be updated. Someone who reads a lot of the good stuff could do it 😉
😁😁😁
Seriously, you've already done the work, all those colored stickies on all those books. Better than Food could too. Literally everyone who follows y'all would want it. Or is it all y'all?
You never know… 😁
Liam neeson?
I'm his son.
The Third Policeman, The Palm Wine Drinkard
Good ones!
I found Miss Lonelyhearts too cold and nihilistic for my tastes.
Yeah, his spiritual (dis?)(illusionment?) was pretty severe.
The film is just as difficult. Incredible cast. Dark, dark.
Oooh, I’ll have to check that out.
Would some of these count as novellas?
Miss Lonelyhearts for sure could be classified novella, though the authors/publishers billed them all as novels.
Kafka?
Yes.
Neither you, or better than food seem to review J.D Salinger, why's that?
For me, I just simply haven't gotten around to it yet. But I will state for the record that Franny & Zooey is my favorite of his work!
@@LeafbyLeaf Can't wait for the review.