Short and Satisfying

It’s the time of year when those of us who set annual reading goals start to get nervous. It’s also the time of year when holiday parties, shopping and errands start to creep into the schedule. If you are facing either or both of these situations, this reading list is right up your alley…short reads to help you meet your goal or distract you from your tasks...all under 200 pages, all released in 2022.

Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson

Sly and suspenseful, Mouth to Mouth masterfully blurs the line between opportunity and exploitation, self-respect and self-delusion, fact and fiction--exposing the myriad ways we deceive each other, and ourselves.

A History of Present Illness by Anna DeForest

“Brutal and brave, DeForest's novel is one of the best in the ‘making of a doctor’ genre. And its plucky protagonist, casualty and hero, roars a universal truth, ‘We all hurt.’” ~ Booklist

The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Exit West, a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka

Once per decade we are graced with a new book by Otsuka. This year’s novel starts as a catalog of spoken and unspoken rules for swimmers at an aquatic center but unfolds into a powerful story of a mother’s dementia and her daughter’s love. ~ Washington Post

The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken

A taut, groundbreaking novel about a writer's relationship with her larger-than-life mother--and about the very nature of writing, memory, and art.

The Employees by Olga Ravn

Olga Ravn's prose is chilling, crackling, exhilarating, and foreboding. The Employees probes into what makes us human, while delivering a hilariously stinging critique of life governed by the logic of productivity.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

From T. Kingfisher, the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones, comes What Moves the Dead, a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic The Fall of the House of Usher.

And, if you like to talk about books, Georgia has a Short and Satisfying Book Club for those looking for a shorter read that is ripe for discussion.

November’s selection is The Twilight World, the great filmmaker Werner Herzog’s first novel that tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who defended a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War II.