This week I decided to switch it up just a little and participate in Top 5 Tuesday, hosted by BionicBookworm! Coincidentally, Top 5 Tuesday is actually on hiatus this week, so I'm just going to go ahead and do last week's topic that I missed, which was: Top 5 books under 300 pages! I do tend to have a lot of longer books as my favorites, but I have a feeling there are some good books I've loved under 300 pages as well.
To figure this out, I just went to my 'favorites' Goodreads shelf and sorted them all by page number. I'm sure I'm missing some of my favorite books on this shelf, but for this week it'll work just fine. :) These are listed in no particular order.
To figure this out, I just went to my 'favorites' Goodreads shelf and sorted them all by page number. I'm sure I'm missing some of my favorite books on this shelf, but for this week it'll work just fine. :) These are listed in no particular order.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid Num. pages: 184
I read this years ago, but remember really appreciating the unique style of storytelling and how important the subejct matter was. I always reccomend this to anyone looking for a quick and fascinating read.
About: "At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. As dusk deepens to night, he begins the tale that has brought them to this fateful encounter…
Changez is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore.
But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
Coraline by Neil GaimanNum. pages: 195
Coraline is easily one of my favorite middle grade novels and I just love how spooky and deep it is. I'm also a huge fan of the adaptation, there couldn't have been a better one made.
About: "In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close.
The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own.
Only it's different.
At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.
Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
A Separate Peace by John KnowlesNum. pages: 204
I picked this book off of a suggested reading list back as a wee freshman in high school and I immediately fell in love. I see so many people that dislike this one now, but I was--and still am--a huge fan of this book.
About: "Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
Hole in My Life by Jack GantosNum. pages: 200
I read this a long time ago and don't admittedly remember a lot of details, but something about it just really stuck out to me and it's always one I remember really appreciating.
About: "In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.
In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos - once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell - moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
The Oresteia by AeschylusNum. pages: 208
The Oresteia is one of my favorite Greek dramas (which, to be frank, I probably say about most of them) for a number of reasons, one of the biggest being because of the sheer passion and emotions that run through it. It's truly a gripping trilogy of plays and I could go on forever, but I won't and I'll just say it's a great one.
About: "The Oresteia--Agamemnon, Choephori, and the Eumenides--tell the story of the house of Atreus: After King Agamemnon is murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra, their son, Orestes, is commanded by Apollo to avenge the crime by killing his mother, and he returns from exile to do so, bringing on himself the wrath of the Furies and the judgment of the court of Athens.
In the Oresteia—the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity—Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. Moving from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, their spirit of struggle and regeneration becomes an everlasting song of celebration."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
And bonus because I can never stop:
The Wisdom of Wolves: Lessons from the Sawtooth Pack by Jim & Jamie DutcherNum. pages: 224
This book is so beautiful and eloquently explains the reasons why I love wolves so much. The Dutchers are two of the most incredible people who have dedicated their lives to the study of wolves and promoting their safety and livelihoods.
"From the world-famous couple who lived alongside a three-generation wolf pack, this book of inspiration, drawn from the wild, will fascinate animal and nature lovers alike. For six years Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived intimately with a pack of wolves, gaining their trust as no one has before.
In this book the Dutchers reflect on the virtues they observed in wolf society and behavior. Each chapter exemplifies a principle, such as kindness, teamwork, playfulness, respect, curiosity, and compassion. Their heartfelt stories combine into a thought-provoking meditation on the values shared between the human and the animal world. Occasional photographs bring the wolves and their behaviors into absorbing focus."
Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound
Have you read any of these? What are some of your favorite books under 300 pages?
I REALLY want to read Caroline. I'm glad you mentioned it! I think the adaption is, indeed, great.
ReplyDeleteOoh you definitely should! It's a perfect fall read, also. :)
Delete