10 Favourite Super Slim Reads
100 pages or less
Eve Matheson shares her slim reads (or ‘shorties’ as she affectionately calls them) from time to time and each one gets added to my TBR immediately! She inspired this post actually so thank you Eve :)
Here’s my favourite 10 reads of 100 pages or less that I found on my bookshelf this week.
“Any kind of important book should immediately be read twice, partly because one grasps the matter in its entirety the second time, and only really understands the beginning when the end is known; and partly because in reading it the second time one’s temper and mood are different so that one gets another impression; it may be that one sees the matter in another light.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
10 books
826 pages collectively
100 pages longest read
61 pages shortest read
9 women authors, 1 male
2 books historically banned in their respective countries (Germany & South Africa)
2 translated works (both from the French)
1 Turkish author; 1 Nigerian; 2 British; 1 Antiguan; 1 South African; 2 American; 2 French
ONE: Address Unknown - Kathrine Kressman Taylor (71 pages)
Banned in Nazi Germany, the book is written as a series of fictional letters between a Jewish art dealer living in San Francisco and his former business partner, who has returned to Germany just before the war.
Kathrine describes her original motivation for the story:
“A short time before the war, some cultivated, intellectual, warm-hearted German friends of mine returned to Germany after living in the United States. In a very short time they turned into sworn Nazis. They refused to listen to the slightest criticism about Hitler. During a return visit to California, they met an old dear friend of theirs on the street, who had been very close to them and who was a Jew. They did not speak to him. They turned their backs on him when he held his hands out to embrace them. How can such a thing happen? I wondered. What changed their hearts so? What steps brought them to such cruelty?”
*side note: the immediate rage I felt when I read the back cover which shares that the book was originally published (in 1938) under the pen name Kressman Taylor because the editor believed that the story was ‘too strong to appear under the name of a woman’. This new edition rightfully restores the book to Kathrine Kressman Taylor’s full name.
TWO: A Room of One’s Own - Virginia Woolf (93 pages)
I somehow avoided reading this book until the tender age of 48 :) but she managed to find her way into my life in a very serendipitous way back in 2022.1
A few favourite quotes from the book —
“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”
“The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.”
THREE: What Kind of Woman - Kate Baer (88 pages)
If you haven’t yet read Kate’s poetry, you can find her here and here.
I shared my love for her debut collection and two of my favourite poems2 when I read her in 2023. This post prompted a fresh reread and I must have missed this one before:
Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels
Unless you count your grandmother's
cake, hand mixed while she waits for the
sound of your breath at the door. Or if
you consider the taste of the sea, arms
raised while you enter, salt at your lips.
Or maybe you've forgotten the taste of
a lover, your mouth on his skin. I ask—
have you ever tasted the cool swill of
freedom? The consuming rush of a
quiet, radical love.
FOUR: A Small Place: Jamaica Kincaid (81 pages)
‘For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime?’
A beautifully written exploration of Antigua, Jamaica’s homeland, and the lingering legacy of the British colonisation. This was never meant to be a book in fact — it was meant to be a letter to her then editor, William Shawn, to explain who she was and where she came from. How she was sent away from Antigua at aged sixteen to be a servant in the USA, and what she found when she returned twenty years later.
This book has stayed with me since I read her in March this year — I shared some of my thoughts in this post.
FIVE: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (61 pages)
Written as a letter to a dear childhood friend who had asked for advice on how to raise her daughter a feminist, Chimamanda shares 15 invaluable suggestions and their reasons. An incredibly funny and perceptive short read.
The suggestions:
Be a full person.
Do it together.
The idea of ‘gender roles’ is absolute nonsense.
Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite.
Teach her to read. Teach her to love books.
Teach her to question language.
Never speak of marriage as an achievement.
Teach her to reject likeability.
Give her a sense of identity. It matters.
Be deliberate about how you engage with her and her appearance.
Teach her to question our culture’s selective use of biology as ‘reasons’ for social norms.
Talk to her about sex, and start early. It will probably be a bit awkward but it is necessary.
Romance will happen, so be on board.
In teaching her about oppression, be careful not to turn the oppressed into saints.
Teach her about difference. Make difference ordinary. Make difference normal.
Chimamanda ends the letter with,
“May she be healthy and happy. May her life be whatever she wants it to be.
Do you have a headache after reading all this? Sorry. Next time don’t ask me how to raise your daughter feminist.
With love, oyi gi,
Chimamanda”
SIX: How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division - Elif Shafak (90 pages)
Another 2022 favourite3, and the book I gift to my very close friends, this book gave me such comfort during the pandemic — thank you Elif.
“Ours is the age of contagious anxiety. So how can we nurture the parts of ourselves that hope, trust and believe in something better? And how can we stay sane in this age of division?”
SEVEN: The Cook - Maylis de Kerangal (100 pages) «translated from the French by Sam Taylor»
A sweet share by Eve, The Cook is a short story about a gifted self-taught French chef named Mauro, who is both passionate about his work and full of questions about its meaning. Narrated by a young woman, we learn about his family life, his restaurant jobs, his culinary triumphs and following those, a nervous collapse. Set in Paris, Berlin and Thailand over the course of fifteen years this is a book about passion, dedication and how ultimately that can at times lead to burnout.
EIGHT: Journey to Jo’burg - Beverley Naidoo (91 pages)
Published as a South African children’s book in 1985, Journey to Jo’burg exposed some harsh truths about the reality of Black peoples experiences under apartheid in South Africa. The book remained banned by the then white supremacist Nationalist Party, and was lifted when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1990. Beverley herself was exiled from South Africa for her anti-apartheid views, and was only able to return to the country of her birth after Nelson’s release.
During apartheid, white South Africans (made up predominantly of Dutch and British people) held Black South Africans as slaves, forcing them to work in extremely terrible conditions. Often not allowing them to have their own families or children nearby and only allowing them to take holidays when they themselves were going away. This meant that for Black people, their families were extremely fractured and vulnerable in rural areas away from the main cities, and children were often raised by elderly grandparents or as part of a small village.
This novella is the story of sister and brother Naledi and Tiro, who live 300km away from their Mother, who works in Johannesburg. Their little sister becomes ill and, unable to contact their mother, they decide to walk the 300km of the ‘big road’ to find her. An incredibly moving story, set against the dangerous landscape that was apartheid South Africa, but ultimately the story of two brave children who will do anything to save their sister.
NINE: erotic poems - e.e. cummings (72 pages)
A racy little collection of poems and drawings by e.e. cummings who sat in his study writing and thinking (a lot!) about sex.4
From: May I Feel Said He
may i feel said he
(i’ll squeal said she
just once said he)
it’s fun said she
(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she
:)
TEN: I Remain In Darkness - Annie Ernaux (79 pages) «translated from the French by Tanya Leslie»
Written in the form of a diary, Annie journals on her mother’s gradual decline from Alzheimer’s disease and how it feels to lose her mother before she physically loses her.
“‘I remain in darkness’ was the last sentence my mother wrote. I often dream of her, picturing her the way she was before her illness. She is alive and yet she has been dead. When I wake up, for a few moments I am certain that she is still living in this dual form, at once dead and alive, like those characters in Greek mythology whose souls have been ferried twice across the River Styx.”
I’m always on the hunt for slim reads I haven’t yet read so please let me know if you have a favourite that I’ve missed in the comments:
TWO: A Room of One’s Own
THREE: What Kind Of Woman
NINE: erotic poems
Loved this Nicole! Have been meaning to read The Cook ever since Eve recommended it all those months ago! So thank you for another reminder xx
The English Understand Wool by Helen Dewitt (69 pgs.) is a great slim read. It blew me away, which is saying a lot given that I'm typically not a fan or short fiction.