What is the shortest novel with a good story that you enjoyed?

Elevation Stephan King, if you can believe it.

Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor. Anywhere from only 122 pages to around 230 depending on which printing you end up with. Absolutely incredible book.

Edit for spelling lol

*Understanding Time and Space* by Alistair Reynolds. Don’t let the title daunt you, it’s my favorite novelette.

There’s an argument to be made that any good book could be considered to be “too short”, but I’ll keep my suggestions to those around 200 pages or fewer.

*The Last Unicorn*, Peter S. Beagle: 200-250 pages, depending on the edition.

*Childhood’s End*, Arthur C Clarke: 214 pages

*The Old Man and the Sea*, Ernest Hemingway: 110 pages, or thereabouts.

*Of Mice and Men* and *Cannery Row*, John Steinbeck: approximately 110 and 200 pages, respectively.

The House on Mango Street

“Eileen”, Ottessa Moshfegh.

Redshirts by John Scalzi. Homage to Star Trek.

Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers

We’ve Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson

The Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker

The Alienist by Machado de assis ,
one of the shortestc funniest , insightful book I’ve ever read. Only around 64 pages.

Disgrace by J.M. Coetze ,
I found it so easy to read and so well written despite the dark content, despite the story being stuck in my mind for being a little fucked up. 226 pages but it’s a pretty small book.

The invention of morel by Adolfo bioy cascares,
Not your average science fiction novella, but it was called as the most perfect story by Borges. 103 pages

The literary conference by cesar aira
A goofy short novella that goes into really creative and unexpected places, but either you’ll love it or hate it. But turned out to be the most enjoyable out of the three novella by aira I read but “an episode in the life of an landscape painter” is recommended if you want something more grounded and realistic while “ghosts” is recommended if you don’t mind reading till the end to learn the punchline sort of but, is fun to read. 97 pages

Next world Novella by Matthias Politycki,
Would give a chefs kiss for the way this story is told. Loved this book. 91 pages

Territory of light by Yuko Tsushima,
I picked it up to read just after I finished reading no longer human, as the author is Osamu Dazai’s daughter, expected the novella to be more cheerful and inspirational like a women overcoming her darkness and becoming more independent pleasantly suprised to find a little more darker stuff similar to no longer human but not as fucked up, but still dealt with it in a nuanced way. And I got to say I did seem toenjoy it more than no longer human. 167 pages

Of mice and men by John Steinbeck ,
A really sad short novel, is great but a little melodramatic but still heartbreaking. 107 pages

The birds by Tarjei Vesaas,
An absolute gem of an Norwegian novel, would recommend it to most people. It follows a mentally handicapped man who lives with his sister. Loved the writing and story. 231 pages

Cain by Jose saramago,
What if the story of cain went on after he killed Abel. The story of Abel and cain but told in cain’s prespective but here god is the villain. Saramago also did the same with the novel “The gospel according to Jesus christ” but haven’t read that yet. 162 pages.

Dreamers by Knut Hamsun,
This book definitely made me love Hamsun, and I haven’t even read his most famous works yet. This was a fun charming novel, which could be already be called and romance. Probably would have put hunger here instead of dreamers if I did read hunger yet but still haven’t so dreamers is here. 92 pages

Snow county by Yashnari Kawabata,
A melancholic novel about a doomed romance, where the both characters no it isn’t going work out, but the novel is so much more than what is said and unsaid it’s hard to explain. People might hate it, but still a beautiful story that can’t be explained in words. 175 pages

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse,
Turned out to be completely different than I expected it to be but definitely a great read that dishes out real wisdom on the nature of life, mistakes we make and how to work towards making ourselves better not by making mistakes but by making them, and also teaching us not everything can be learned through books and teaching. 113 pages

The meursault investigation by kamel daoud,
Only recommend this if you liked the stranger by camus, this one creates a great juxtaposition against the stranger and would recommend it to anyone who loved the stranger. Also the circular nature of the novel and the unreliable narrator is also great. 89 pages

The outsides by S.E. Hinton
Defjnitely recommend it if you’re just reading out, pretty great novel with good moments. And it’s an actual YA novel written by an teenager when she was 16, and has been a classic. 220 pages

Drown by junot Diaz,
Despite being a short story collection, I consider this a novel or a novella, as most of the story has a recurring character of Yunior. I liked these stories despite not knowing nothing about this book when I picked it up from the library. And I haven’t actually read any of the novellas written by junot Diaz yet . 158 pages

Live forever by Andre’s caicedo,
Idk even if I’ll call this having a good story, more of a vibe type of novel but it did have me hooked for the first half idk about the ending since I don’t remember much of it lol. 182 pages

His name was death by Rafael Bernal
Kind of an underrated and amazing book about a guy learning how to communicate it with mosquitoes, would definitely recommend it to anyone, as it’s an great story and goes in really interesting places, kind of a science fiction novel. 162 pages

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. Wonderful little book that can be read in one sitting, best in the winter.

Ian McEwen’s ‘The Cement Garden’. 138 pages, I read it in a day. ‘Of Mice and Men’ by Steinbeck is quite short too.

Also, ‘Jesus’ Son’ by Denis Johnson, probably my favourite novel.

The Old Man and the Sea

Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls.

One of the best novels of the 80s, it’s only 128 pages.

It’s a really excellent tongue-in-cheek social satire that on the surface sounds ridiculous, but isn’t. It delves into mental health, women’s liberation/sexual agency, and what it means to be human.

Of Mice and Men

Siddhartha

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers, two lovely short novels

Of mice and men by John Steinbeck. Short but very poignant.

“jamila” by chingiz aitmatov

On Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Metamorphosis by Kafka? Less than 90 pages and a classic.

Small things like these by Claire Keegan

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West