10 Short Reads To Help Boost Your Reading Challenge

Book goals, book goals, we make them but why is it so hard to keep them?

They seem so far away when we make them but with the new year right around, the pressure is beginning to sink in. No worries, don’t give up yet, here are short titles you could read in a day, or even in an afternoon to get that book count up. Most of these are in and around 200 pages, so if you really want you can read them quickly. 

1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

This modern classic, set in a small Nigerian village and is told through intertwined stories where the reader witnesses first an individual life fall to pieces, and then the society he belongs

2. The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie

When the body of a beautiful blonde is found in a friend’s library, Miss Marple is called in to investigate. This is classic mystery at its finest. 

3. “My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Set in modern Nigeria, this novel depicts the lives of two sisters who must navigate their own demons in a patriarchal society. Read my full review here. 

4. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

This book is a classic for a reason. Set in Ohio in 1941 we follow Pecola who is told she is ugly, as a result develops an obsession with blue eyes that equates with whiteness. 

5. We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

What does “feminism” mean today? That is the question at the heart of We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay

6. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

A national bestseller when it first appeared in 1963, The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement.

7. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Told in a series of vignettes – sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become.

8. Even Though I Knew the End by C.L Polk

A magical detective dives into the affairs of Chicago’s divine monsters to secure a future with the love of her life. 

9 How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

The stories that makeup How to Pronounce Knife focus on characters struggling to find their bearings in unfamiliar territory, or shuttling between idioms, cultures, and values

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11 Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia 

A New York Times bestseller, Of Women and Salt, tells the story of five generations of fierce Latina women, linked by blood and circumstance. 

Have you reached your book goal? Have you added any of these short reads to your booklist?