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Great Short Books: A Year of Reading-Briefly

Description: From 'Great Short Books' by Kenneth C. Davis, 58 Books with full, insightful essays giving context and advice on additional reading. Original order in my notes was in alphabetical order based on the popular English title. The exception being Mrs. Dalloway/The Hours.

Rank Title Author Added

1

by George Orwell

70,102 members

1,007 reviews

4

4 Members: hipdeep, amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #2

2

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

83,025 members

1,304 reviews

3.8

4 Members: hipdeep, amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #19

3

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

by Shirley Jackson

10,368 members

504 reviews

4.1

3 Members: amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #57

4

Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston

22,353 members

386 reviews

4

3 Members: hipdeep, amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #53

5

Maus I: My Father Bleeds History

by Art Spiegelman

12,222 members

281 reviews

½ 4.4

3 Members: hipdeep, amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #30

6

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption {novella}

by Stephen King

3,036 members

62 reviews

½ 4.3

3 Members: hipdeep, amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #48

7

Wide Sargasso Sea

9,479 members

274 reviews

½ 3.6

3 Members: amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #58

8

The Old Man and the Sea

by Ernest Hemingway

35,451 members

562 reviews

3.8

3 Members: amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #36

9

The Lathe of Heaven

by Ursula K. Le Guin

7,777 members

228 reviews

4

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #25

10

by Edith Wharton

10,670 members

241 reviews

½ 3.6

3 Members: amanda4242, NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #15

11

by Virginia Woolf

23,302 members

376 reviews

3.8

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #32

12

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

23,377 members

460 reviews

3.8

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #54

13

23,152 members

344 reviews

3.8

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #8

14

The Postman Always Rings Twice

by James M. Cain

3,910 members

144 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #45

15

by Albert Camus

40,904 members

581 reviews

3.9

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #50

16

The Fifth Child

by Doris Lessing

2,669 members

92 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #17

17

A Clockwork Orange

by Anthony Burgess

28,703 members

416 reviews

4

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #10

18

Evil Under the Sun

by Agatha Christie

5,379 members

110 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #16

19

The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

12,936 members

255 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #21

20

Pale Horse, Pale Rider [novella]

by Katherine Anne Porter

17 members

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #40

21

Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

57,422 members

818 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: NinieB, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #26

22

by Marguerite Duras

6,098 members

167 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #28

23

by Jamaica Kincaid

1,286 members

16 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #29

24

10,255 members

208 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #4

25

On Chesil Beach

9,022 members

388 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #37

26

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

14,543 members

232 reviews

4

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #38

27

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

by Jeanette Winterson

6,977 members

160 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #39

28

Charlotte's Web

41,477 members

1,069 reviews

4.2

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #9

29

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

by Muriel Spark

5,884 members

191 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #46

30

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

by Yukio Mishima

3,692 members

68 reviews

3.8

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #49

31

A Pale View of Hills

by Kazuo Ishiguro

3,505 members

97 reviews

½ 3.7

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #41

32

Tokyo Ueno Station

1,025 members

27 reviews

½ 3.6

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #55

33

Waiting for the barbarians

by J. M. Coetzee

4,900 members

83 reviews

4

2 Members: amanda4242, ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #56

34

Death in Venice

6,015 members

119 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #12

35

The Ballad of the Sad Café [novella]

by Carson McCullers

201 members

6 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #5

36

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

23,552 members

252 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #44

37

by Michael Cunningham

13,647 members

243 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #33

38

by Alberto Moravia

559 members

16 reviews

½ 3.3

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #1

39

Another Brooklyn

by Jacqueline Woodson

1,563 members

109 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #3

40

BIG BOY LEAVES HOME

by Richard Wright

1 member

3

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #6

41

Bonjour Tristesse

by Françoise Sagan

3,845 members

113 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #7

42

The Country Girls

by Edna O'Brien

848 members

29 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #11

43

Dept. of Speculation

by Jenny Offill

2,445 members

155 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #13

44

by Natalia Ginzburg

535 members

17 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #14

45

The Ghost Writer

2,091 members

40 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #18

46

The Hour of the Star

by Clarice Lispector

2,816 members

90 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #20

47

If Beale Street Could Talk

by James Baldwin

3,086 members

68 reviews

4.1

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #22

48

If This Is a Man

6,672 members

102 reviews

½ 4.3

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #23

49

by Nadine Gordimer

1,999 members

47 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #24

50

The Lost Daughter

by Elena Ferrante

1,114 members

51 reviews

½ 3.7

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #27

51

by Charles Johnson

1,541 members

21 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #31

52

The Nickel Boys

by Colson Whitehead

5,796 members

257 reviews

4.2

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #34

53

No One Writes to the Colonel {novella}

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2,094 members

41 reviews

½ 3.5

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #35

54

by Nella Larsen

3,571 members

134 reviews

3.8

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #42

55

The Perfect Nanny: A Novel

by Leïla Slimani

2,325 members

121 reviews

½ 3.4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #43

56

The Red Badge of Courage

by Stephen Crane

13,460 members

138 reviews

½ 3.4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #47

57

by Toni Morrison

8,926 members

117 reviews

3.9

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #51

58

by Margaret Atwood

4,661 members

118 reviews

½ 3.4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda
Explanations: ManWithAnAgenda: #52

59

Great Short Books: A Year of Reading―Briefly

by Kenneth C. Davis

143 members

5 reviews

4

Member: ManWithAnAgenda

About This List

Started: ManWithAnAgenda
October 2023
Type: Numbered and unnumbered, Adding restricted

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