The novelist Cynan Jones once wrote that in brief fiction, “every word is doing a job. So pay attention. A short novel is an event, not a trip.” The Swedish Academy recognized that this week ...

Short novels are even sneaking into works of long, complex fiction: In Lucy Ives’s labyrinthine Life Is Everywhere, the protagonist’s eerie novella, a riff on Hamlet, pops up hundreds of pages in.

Increasingly, the short novel seems to me to be the ideal literary form for our tired, distracted but still story-hungry age. Maybe the whole notion is foolish.

Best short novels for a classic quick read in 2024. Ingenious storytelling in 300 pages or less . ... Sign up for our free weekly newsletter for hot deals, best buys and expert reviews.