Hey everyone!
I'm going to be walking the camino de Santiago and I am looking for a book to take with me. Ideally, something with shorter chapters or self-contained stories so I can get a sense of closure each time I pick it up.
I feel that with a traditional novel, or smt huge like war&peace you have awkward break points when reading at a cafe or at a bench or something.
Do you guys have any suggestions?
by frombsc2msc
19 Comments
Da Vinci code chapters are like 3 pages. Buen camino!
Do you like any particular type of book? Fiction, non-fiction? Genre or subject? I have quite a few recommends, but don’t want you to take something you’re unlikely to enjoy!
A lot of Japanese murder mysteries have pretty short chapters, I feel. Check out Seishi Yokomizo; his mysteries are really great and easy to read. The chapters are rather short, can be around 8 pages or so depending on the chapter. There are six books translated (out of like 77 …) and they are all fantastic.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Each short story can be enjoyed on it’s own but they ultimately come together to create the beautifully fragmented story of humankind’s colonization of Mars.
Einstein’s Dreams
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I have a really great collection of short stories called ‘My Mistresses Sparrow is Dead’, curated by Jeffery Eugenides and with a loose theme of love – not at all romance though. I dip in and out of it all the time and read a random story.
I used to read anthologies “the best short stories of (insert year)”. They were so good.
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. It’s almost like a diary of enriching aphorisms, insightful observations, beautiful mini-essays, etc. The great thing is they’re mostly very short (often less than a page long) and you don’t need to read them in any particular order, so you can just flick to a random page as you like, read a short amount, then let it marinate in your subconsciousness as you go about your day.
I’ve been on a short story kick lately for just this reason. “Trigger Warning” by Neil Gaiman is really good atm
I’m reading Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr at the moment, and my experience so far is that I dip in and out of it – short sections, well written, some tension but not so you need to keep reading. I’m thinking of it like sipping a fine whiskey, a little bit now, a little bit later
The diary of Sei Shonagon- small, beautiful chapters from medieval Japan
Short Story collections! My favorite short story author is Alice Munro.
Whalefall – very short chapters, easy to follow and gripping
The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon is like a 1000 year old blog by an observant but somewhat self-obsessed instagrammer. Best read in short bursts.
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin KImmerer, a wonderful combination the indigenous ways of seeing the world and ecological science. The author is both Native American and an ecological science professor. I read it years ago, and my book club read it this month. Everyone loved it, and several are going to buy their own copies to reread. It precipitated the best book club discussion ever and, while each chapter builds on the last, each can also stand alone.
Also, Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver. A wonderful collection of essays that I revisit regularly.
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A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. It’s written in short chapters and each one is self contained, overall it’s essentially a picture of what it was like to be poor and writing in Paris in the 1920s with Gertrude Stein and the Fitzgeralds and the gang. Oysters and white wine, anyone?
Adverbs by Daniel Handler or Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty.
The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh, or his other small books of meditations. Chapters are a 100-300 word prompts to introspection, read quickly, good for bedtime quietude, and well suited for a walk like that you’re embarking upon.