Book Recommendations; 10 Books Under 250 Pages To Read For Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

Next Saturday, it's Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon again. It's a fun readathon I've participated in multiple times over the years and there's readers all over the world connecting over reading for 24 hours. There's an official website as well as a Facebook group, to name a few places to connect.

Anyway, one thing that I've learned is that it's probably not the wisest of ideas to read a heavy duty doorstopper such as Bleak House by Charles Dickens during the readathon (but if you want to read something like that, of course I can't stop you), but perhaps rather opt for some shorter reads. With that in mind, I wanted to make a list of book recommendations, containing books with less than 250 pages to read during the readathon. Shorter reads, in my opinion at least, is a bit more manageable.

Here's my ten book recommendations.

Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

Description from Goodreads

This is the story of Robert Grainer, a day labourer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century/ Acknowledged as one of Denis Johnson's finest works to date, Train Dreams is American epic in miniature and a novel that will stay with you for years to come.

Maiden, Mother, Crone edited by Gwen Benaway

Description from Goodreads

Maiden, Mother, Crone: Fantastical Trans Femmes is a Bedside Press anthology of new fantastical short fiction by trans women and trans feminine writers curated by celebrated poet and author Gwen Benaway.

Drawing on high fantasy and other genres of fantasy writing, Maiden, Mother, Crone is the first anthology by trans femme authors to explore the realms of magic, supernatural beings, and alternate universes. Enter a universe of wonder where trans femmes are powerful heroines, sorceresses, and warriors fighting against dark forces in vivid magical worlds.

With celebrated trans femme writers like Kai Cheng Thom, Casey Plett, and Gwen Benaway, and featuring art by Alex Morris, this anthology will transform the landscape of fantasy fiction and offer radical portals into excitement, danger, and transformation.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Description from Goodreads

Mr. Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion under the leadership of the pigs Napoleon and Snowball leads to the animals taking over the farm. Vowing to eliminate the terrible inequities of the farmyard, the renamed Animal Farm is organized to benefit all who walk on four legs. But as time passes, the ideals of the rebellion are corrupted, then forgotten. And something new and unexpected emerges...

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

Description from Goodreads

An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other's fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges - one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.

Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults. This new edition sees the return of a European literary gem - fresh, authentic and deeply humane.

Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov

Description from Goodreads

"Jamilia" is told from the point of view of a fictional Kyrgyz artist, Seit, who tells the story by looking back on his childhood. The story recounts the love between his new sister-in-law Jamilia and a local crippled young man, Daniyar, while Jamilia's husband, Sadyk, is away at the front during World War II.

Based on clues in the story, it takes place in northwestern Kyrgyzstan, presumably Talas Province. The story is backdropped against the collective farming culture which was early in its peak in that period.

Chingiz Aïtmatov was born in Kyrgyzstan in 1928. His work appeared in over one hundred languages, and received numerous awards, including the Lenin Prize. He was the Kyrgyz ambassador to the European Union, NATO, UNESCO and the Benelux countries.

Translated by James Riordan.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo

Description from Goodreads

Kim Jiyoung is a girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy. Kim Jiyoung is a sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own.

Kim Jiyoung is a female preyed upon by male teachers at school. Kim Jiyoung is a daughter whose father blames her when she is harassed late at night.

Kim Jiyoung is a good student who doesn't get put forward for internships. Kim Jiyoung is a model employee but gets overlooked for promotion. Kim Jiyoung is a wife who gives up her career and independence for a life of domesticity.

Kim Jiyoung has started acting strangely.

Kim Jiyoung is depressed.

Kim Jiyoung is mad.

Kim Jiyoung is her own woman.

Kim Jiyoung is every woman.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is the life story of one young woman born at the end of the twentieth century and raises questions about endemic misogyny and institutional oppression that are relevant to us all. Riveting, original and uncompromising, this is the most important book to have emerged from South Korea since Han Kang's The Vegetarian.

The Dog Who Dared to Dream by Sun-Mi Hwang

Description from Goodreads

This is the story of a dog named Scraggly. Born an outsider because of her distinctive appearance, she spends most of her days in the sun-filled yard of her owner's house. Scraggly has dreams and aspirations just like the rest of us. But each winter, dark clouds descend and Scraggly is faced with challenges that she must overcome. Through the clouds and even beyond the gates of her owner's yard lies the possibility of friendship, motherhood and happiness — they are for the taking if Scraggly can just hold on to them, bring them home and build the life she so desperately desires.

The Dog Who Dared to Dream is a wise tale of the relationship between dog and man, as well as a celebration of a life lived with courage.

The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag

Description from Goodreads

In the high Altai Mountains of northern Mongolia, a young shepherd boy comes of age, tending his family's flocks on the mountain steppes. Knowing little of the world beyond the surrounding peaks, his nomadic way of life is disrupted by modernity.

This confrontation comes in stages. First, his older siblings leave the family yurt to attend a distant boarding school. Then the boy's grandmother dies, and with her his connection to the old ways. But perhaps the greatest tragedy strikes when his dog, Arsylang--"all that was left to me"--ingests poison set out by the boy's father to protect his herd from wolves. "Why is it so?" Dshurukawaa cries out in despair to the Heavenly Blue Sky, to be answered only by the wind. Rooted in the oral traditions of the Tuvan people, The Blue Sky weaves the timeless story of a boy poised on the cusp of manhood with the story of a people on the threshold.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang

Description from Goodreads

Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye's decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.

Braised Pork by An Yu

Description from Goodreads

Beautiful, dreamlike, and utterly intoxicating, Braised Pork is the beguiling debut of an outstandingly talented young writer who is based in China but writes in English

One autumn morning, Jia Jia walks into the bathroom of her lavish Beijing apartment to find her husband dead. One minute she was breakfasting with him and packing for an upcoming trip, the next, she finds him motionless in their half-full bathtub. Like something out of a dream, next to the tub Jia Jia discovers a pencil sketch of a strange watery figure, an image that swims into Jia Jia's mind and won't leave.

The mysterious drawing launches Jia Jia on an odyssey across contemporary Beijing, from its high-rise apartments to its hidden bars, as her path crosses some of the people who call the city home, including a jaded bartender who may be able to offer her the kind of love she had long thought impossible. Unencumbered by a marriage that had constrained her, Jia Jia travels into her past to try to discover things that were left unsaid by the people closest to her. Her journey takes her to the high plains of Tibet, and even to a shadowy, watery otherworld, a place she both yearns and fears to go.

Exquisitely attuned to the complexities of human connection, and an atmospheric and cinematic evocation of middle-class urban China, An Yu's Braised Pork explores the intimate strangeness of grief, the indelible mysteries of unseen worlds, and the energizing self-discovery of a newly empowered young woman.