I’m a grad student that works full time while raising a family so of course I don’t have much free time. I haven’t picked up a book in months and really feel like reading something that I can get through quickly while on the bus or the train (or what spare time I can manage at home). Not really sure what I’m looking for so I’ll just drop some of my all time favorites as a starting point.
All Quiet on the Western Front – Enrich Remarque
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union – Michael Chabon
I would appreciate any suggestions that is similar to one or more of these! Thank you!
by Turbulent-Spray1647
3 Comments
These aren’t light and easy (besides literally being physically such) but neither were your favorites so I’m assuming that’s what you meant lol Maybe read Camus The Stranger and follow it up with No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai.
There is another question here on novellas which might be a thing you could try since they will quickly give you a sense of having read something again.
Based on Remarque I’d suggest One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (also Russian with a nod to Dostoyevsky). Remarque was about war and this about the Gulag but both give insight into lives lived under intense and precarious circumstances.
Based on Crime and Punishment I’d suggest Seize The Day. Both are studies of a single person, in the latter case dealing with failure rather than a crime he committed.
The third I haven’t read so can’t suggest one for that directly but check out the other thread.
Something very light and easy by an author you mentioned you like: *Gentlemen of the Road* by Michael Chabon is a short old-fashioned swashbuckling historical adventure novel with delightful “purple prose” (I know that phrase usually refers to *bad* prose, but I can’t think of a better phrase right now), a great combination of cynicism and warmth, and a focus on a time, place, and mix of cultures that you don’t most commonly see in historical fiction. Apparently it got some flack from Chabon’s literary fans for too much swashbuckling and flack from genre readers for too much introspection. It was my first Chabon book and now I’m reading *The Yiddish Policeman’s Union*.