{"id":1227,"date":"2026-07-29T13:04:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T13:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/29\/the-ten-best-short-novels-under-150-pages-chosen-by-experts\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T13:04:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T13:04:26","slug":"the-ten-best-short-novels-under-150-pages-chosen-by-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/07\/29\/the-ten-best-short-novels-under-150-pages-chosen-by-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"The ten best short novels under 150 pages \u2013 chosen by experts"},"content":{"rendered":"
Which short novel would you recommend?<\/span> ProStockStudio\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A novel doesn\u2019t need to be a hefty tome to change your life. Forget War and Peace (1,200 pages) or Les Mis\u00e9rables (1,400 pages); these expert recommendations are under 150 pages \u2013 short enough to tear through over a weekend.<\/em> <\/p>\n

1. Train Dreams<\/a> by Denis Johnson (2011)<\/h2>\n

In 2012, Denis Johnson\u2019s Train Dreams did not win the Pulitzer prize. Though shortlisted as one of three finalists, the committee \u201cwithheld\u201d the fiction award for the first time in 35 years, because none of the works received a majority from the panel. <\/p>\n

It was as though the judges were spooked by Johnson\u2019s slim novella. Though it poses as a simple addition to the western frontier genre, it soon unsettles the confidence of America\u2019s founding myths with unnerving echoes, tangents and coincidences.<\/p>\n

In fewer than 150 short pages, Train Dreams follows the building of the transcontinental railroad through the life of an orphaned logger, Robert Grainier. When Grainier\u2019s family disappear in a terrible forest fire, he fears his work as a tree cutter has wrought the vengeance of an abused natural environment. <\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s novella riffs on the story of the American Dream and transforms it into an ethereal tale of settler colonial conquest, indentured labour and ecological grief.<\/p>\n

Dominic Davies is a reader in English<\/em><\/p>\n

2. The Lonely Londoners<\/a> by Samuel Selvon (1956)<\/h2>\n

A disenchanted narrator, Moses Aloetta, makes his way to Waterloo to meet newly arrived Windrush immigrants from Trinidad and Jamaica. In London, almost a decade later, he has become a grudging source of support, finding lodgings and work. The prose slips between the narrative perspectives of \u201cthe boys\u201d, as the group call themselves.<\/p>\n

Modernist in style (with similarities to Virginia Woolf and James Joyce), the shifting internal monologue has a mostly chronological structure, but it is written in non-standard English to reflect Trinidadian dialect. The slim novel conveys \u201cgold and grey\u201d<\/a>: grim rented rooms and persistent racism<\/a>, alongside the wonder of postcolonial flaneurs<\/a> newly encountering the city. <\/p>\n

Suspending his often-threatened return home for another year, at the novel\u2019s end, Moses senses golden hope at the dock of the Thames. The boys hear the summer evening\u2019s soft laughter as tugboats pass and Moses anticipates writing a book about his everyday life, one \u201cwhat everybody would buy\u201d. <\/p>\n

Published 70 years ago, The Lonely Londoners was out of print for decades; now it is rightfully recognised<\/a> as one of the most important<\/a> short novels in the world.<\/p>\n

Jenni Ramone is an associate professor of postcolonial and global literature<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence<\/a> by Doris Pilkington Garimara (1996)<\/h2>\n

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on Doris Pilkington Garimara\u2019s experience as part of Australia\u2019s stolen generation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This term refers to predominantly mixed-race Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly removed from their families by governments, churches and welfare bodies. They were placed in institutions or with non-Indigenous families to be assimilated into white communities from the early 1900s until the 1970s. <\/p>\n

This book portrays the removal of the author\u2019s mother, aunt and cousin to the Moore River Native Settlement in western Australia and their subsequent escape. Molly, Daisy and Gracie use the thousand-mile fence through the Australian outback to navigate towards their home in Jigalong. <\/p>\n

The novel is one of the most popular and accessible accounts of the Stolen Generation, compellingly combining resistance and adventure narratives. <\/p>\n

Sarah Olive is a senior lecturer in communication and culture<\/em><\/p>\n

4. Invisible Cities<\/a> by Italo Calvino (1972)<\/h2>\n

Invisible Cities has a cult following. While not widely known outside literary circles it\u2019s well loved by those who have encountered its sumptuous prose.<\/p>\n

Italo Calvino\u2019s novella is made up of 55 short descriptions of imaginary cities. Venetian merchant and explorer Marco Polo tells these stories to Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, as he describes the vast empire in the 13th century. <\/p>\n

The variety of ideas explored in these depictions illustrate the writer\u2019s immense creativity. While the framing conversation between Kublai and Polo keeps these ideas moving in a linear fashion, the reader eventually comes to realise the vignettes can be read in any order.<\/p>\n

Calvino was a member of the OuLiPo school of writing<\/a>, a group of predominantly French writers who used mathematical forms to inspire their experimental fiction. The style is on full display in this ethereal, dreamlike novella, which, while a quick read, offers a profound experience.<\/p>\n

Matthew Leggatt is a senior lecturer in English and American literature<\/em><\/p>\n

5. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead<\/a> by Barbara Comyns (1954)<\/h2>\n

If the idea of a short mid-20th-century novel about an English village suggests something mannered or prim, Barbara Comyns\u2019 Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead (1954) will come as an audacious surprise. <\/p>\n

The novel opens with ducks swimming through the windows of the Willoweed family home after a flood bursts them open. A plague of insanity follows when the butcher, the miller, then 19 others take their own lives after rampaging through the village lanes. <\/p>\n

Avril Horner, Comyns\u2019 biographer, explains that<\/a>, drawn to \u201cthe extraordinary and the macabre\u201d, Comyns based her tale on a real French tragedy when villagers were
\npoisoned by a fungus in bread. Her version, both grotesque and exuberant (meals
\nconsist of \u201csoggy bread that smelt of paraffin\u201d and \u201cfish paste with green mould on top\u201d), is ultimately an account of the constraints and responsibilities of family life and who can escape them.<\/p>\n

Tory Young is an associate professor in English literature<\/em><\/p>\n

6. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers<\/a> by Max Porter (2015)<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that Grief is the Thing with Feathers was Max Porter\u2019s debut. This short knotted-string dream of a read will keep you in a cosy headlock.<\/p>\n

Porter\u2019s book is written in three voices: boys, dad and crow. Following their mother\u2019s sudden death, two boys and their father \u2013 a scruffy Ted Hughes scholar \u2013 are visited by a mysterious bird, who threatens to stay until they no longer need him. Between benevolent teacher and malevolent jester, the crow offers refuge for the reader\u2019s own experiences. <\/p>\n

Like grief itself, the book\u2019s meaning remains a cryptic mystery, shifting between chronologies and perspectives. Equal parts witty and moving, Porter\u2019s novel is poetry in disguise. Unflinching in its portrayal of love and loss, Grief is the Thing with Feathers leaves a lasting mark.<\/p>\n

Jade King is a teaching fellow in creative writing<\/em><\/p>\n

7. In Watermelon Sugar<\/a> by Richard Brautigan (1968)<\/h2>\n

I bought my first Brautigan book because the front cover featured a cool guy in a Stetson and, on the back, was simply the word \u201cmayonnaise\u201d. Inside, I found a writer with a lighter touch than the other counter-cultural \u201cbeats\u201d<\/a>, who was also funnier. <\/p>\n

Watermelon\u2019s narrator lives in iDEATH, a strange, potentially post-apocalyptic commune (explanations not provided). He recounts how lives in iDEATH are constructed from watermelon sugar, which makes up part of his house and furniture too. What\u2019s watermelon sugar? Brautigan doesn\u2019t say. Nor does he explain what watermelontrout oil is (and that\u2019s crucial). But who cares? There\u2019s a love story here and a rebellion featuring the insidious inBOIL (and mythical tigers).<\/p>\n

The novel is spoken through a unique voice created from prose of such grace that you feel like a prayer is being spoken inside you. <\/p>\n

Adam Baron is a novelist and associate professor in creative writing<\/em><\/p>\n

8. Small Things Like These<\/a> by Claire Keegan (2021)<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m surprised this title emerged as my favourite novella, solely because I do love a happy ending. I can\u2019t recall my first foray into Claire Keegan\u2019s fiction, though I\u2019m an avid reader and advocate of her seductive writing.<\/p>\n

Eloquently and succinctly, this story confronts without compromise recent historical treatment of women in the care of the Catholic church in Ireland. Bill Furlong is extra busy delivering coal but not too busy to notice inexplicable cruelty at the local convent and assimilate this into his very being. Privy to a complicit community, I tensely tailed Furlong\u2019s circular thoughts, the injustices surrounding a life \u2013 the \u201csmall things like these\u201d. Just as well it\u2019s an afternoon\u2019s read.<\/p>\n

In creating a compassionate protagonist, Keegan suggests amid unspeakable horrors there were people who in defiance of enforced silence became quiet heroes. This is heartwarming. But I finished the book tormented by Furlong\u2019s personal cost.<\/p>\n

Colleen Ballard is a lecturer in English<\/em><\/p>\n

9. The Breast<\/a> by Philip Roth (1972)<\/h2>\n

David Kepesh, one of Philip Roth\u2019s precociously smart and over-sexed alter egos, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into an enormous human breast. The grotesque motif is narrated in disarming quasi-realistic detail, including the medical interventions needed to keep Kepesh alive, and how he manages to amuse himself by listening to recordings of great literature. <\/p>\n

An early esprit from the young novelist in the 1970s, The Breast is often interpreted in relation to psychoanalysis and the unacknowledged femininity that may lurk within the voraciously hetero male.<\/p>\n

Roth being Roth, he wants you to know he\u2019s aware of writing in an intertextual web. He delivers some of the allusions explicitly to his reader \u2013 including Franz Kafka\u2019s Metamorphosis<\/a> (1915), and Nikolai Gogol\u2019s arguably even more surreal The Nose<\/a> (1836). <\/p>\n

Sadly, Roth wasn\u2019t alive to read Ian McEwan\u2019s Brexit allegory The Cockroach<\/a> (2019), which might have tickled him. Roth\u2019s novella concludes beautifully with a full quotation of Rainer Maria Rilke\u2019s poem Archaic Torso of Apollo<\/a>. It\u2019s another meditation on the alienating human body, with its haunting final sentence: \u201cYou must change your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Bradshaw is dean of Humanities and Social Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n

10. The Outsider by Albert Camus (1942)<\/h2>\n

Following the death of his mother, Meursault, a French-Algerian office worker in the 1930s, attends her funeral with apparent emotional detachment. After beginning a relationship with a young woman who worked in the same office, he then becomes involved with a neighbour\u2019s violent dispute. <\/p>\n

His life changes dramatically when he shoots a young \u201cArab\u201d man on a sun-drenched beach. It leads to his imprisonment and a trial to which he remains a detached observer. It\u2019s an apparently simple, tragic story. But it\u2019s compellingly written, and the spare prose conceals profound questions about morality, society and human existence. <\/p>\n

The English title fixes the status of Meursault. But in the French title \u2013 L’\u00c9tranger<\/em> \u2013 multiple meanings come into play: stranger, foreigner, outsider \u2026 all reflecting the novel\u2019s ambiguities. The sensuality of the sun and the sea are also central to the story, rooted in Camus\u2019s love of Algeria. The colonial context is politically contested, but this is a transcendent moral fable powerfully confronting the absurdity of existence. <\/p>\n

Debra Kelly is a principal research fellow in French and Francophone studies<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favourite short novel? Let us know in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which short novel would you recommend? ProStockStudio\/Shutterstock A novel doesn\u2019t need to be a hefty tome to change your life. Forget War and Peace (1,200 pages) or Les Mis\u00e9rables (1,400 pages); these expert recommendations are under 150 pages \u2013 short enough to tear through over a weekend. 1. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (2011) In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}