Novella book recommendations : the list
Sorry it took me almost a month to compile the list of novella recommendations I gathered after my billet asking for reading ideas.
I listed all the book titles left in the comments and also the list of novellas from Mrs Bibi Lophile’s A Novella a Day In May. Lisa from ANZ LitLovers has a list of novellas on her blog. (See here) Jonathan Gibbs from Tiny Camels also had novella reading challenge, see here. I’m sure there are other blogs with challenges like this or lists of novellas but these are the ones I’m aware of.
Thanks a lot for responding to my post.
Now apart from Lisa’s and Jonathan’s list, let’s see what I gathered:
| # | French title | English title | Author | Country | # pages |
| 1 | La partie de cartes | The Game of Cards | Adolf Schröder | Germany | 178 |
| 2 | Non traduit | Such Small Hands | Andres Barbas | Spain | 112 |
| 3 | Parler seul | Talking to Ourselves | Andrés Neuman | Argentina | 168 |
| 4 | La steppe. Histoire d’un voyage | The Steppe | Anton Chekhov | Russia | 160 |
| 5 | Pereira prétend | Pereira Maintains | Antonio Tabucchi | Italy | 213 |
| 6 | Nocturne indien | Indian Nocturne | Antonio Tabucchi | Italy | 126 |
| 7 | Un bref mariage | The Story of a Brief Marriage | Anuk Arudpragasam | Sri Lanka | 208 |
| 8 | Non traduit | Our Spoons Came From Woolworth | Barbara Comyns | UK | |
| 9 | Les boutiques de cannelle | The Street of Crocodiles | Bruno Schulz | Poland | 208 |
| 10 | Djamilia | Jamilia | Chingiz Aitmatov | Russia | 96 |
| 11 | Un homme au singulier | A Single Man | Christopher Isherwood | UK | 175 |
| 12 | Le blé en herbe | The Ripening Seed | Colette | France | |
| 13 | Les aventures de Kornél Esti | Kornél Esti | Dezső Kosztolányi | Hungary | 154 |
| 14 | Non traduit | Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill | Dimitri Verhulst | Belgium | 160 |
| 15 | Non traduit | Mirror, Shoulder, Signal | Dorothy Nors | Denmark | 188 |
| 16 | Psaumes balbutiés. Livre d’heures de ma mère | Stammered Songbook : A Mother’s Book of Hours | Erwin Mortier | Belgium | 192 |
| 17 | Le brigand bien-aimé | The Robber Bridgegroom | Eudora Welty | USA | 144 |
| 18 | L’oncle Daniel le généreux | The Ponder Heart | Eudora Welty | USA | 132 |
| 19 | La troisième Miss Symons | The Third Miss Symons | FM Mayor | UK | 127 |
| 20 | Le dimanche des mères | Mothering Sunday | Graham Swift | UK | 141 |
| 21 | Les années douces | Strange Weather in Tokyo | Hiromi Kawakami | Japan | 283 |
| 22 | Contes hassidiques | Not available in English | I.L. Peretz | Poland | 171 |
| 23 | Sur la plage de Chesil | On Chesil Beach | Ian McEwan | UK | 183 |
| 24 | Un Bonheur de Rencontre | The Comfort of Strangers | Ian McEwan | UK | 217 |
| 25 | Non traduit | After Claude | Iris Owens | USA | 232 |
| 26 | Le restaurant de l’amour retrouvé | The Restaurant of Love Regained | Ito Ogawa | Japan | 224 |
| 27 | Premier amour et autres histoires | First Love | Ivan Turgenev | Russia | |
| 28 | Non traduit | After Leaving Mr Mackenzie | Jean Rhys | UK | |
| 29 | Voyage dans les ténèbres | Voyage in the Dark | Jean Rhys | UK | 207 |
| 30 | Quartet | Quartet | Jean Rhys | UK | 144 |
| 31 | Non traduit | We who are about to… | Joanna Russ | USA | 144 |
| 32 | La maison muette | The Dumb House | John Burnside | UK | 208 |
| 33 | Hôtel Savoy | Hotel Savoy | Josef Roth | Austria | 188 |
| 34 | Si nous vivions dans un endroit normal | Quesadillas | Juan Pablo Villalobos | Mexico | 192 |
| 35 | La compagnie des Tripolitaines | Under the Tripoli Sun | Kamel Ben Hameda | Lybia | 108 |
| 36 | Comédie en mode mineur | Comedy in a Minor Key | Keilson | Germany | 227 |
| 37 | Code barre | Not available in English | Krisztina Tóth | Hungary | 208 |
| 38 | La mer couleur de vin | The Wine-dark Sea | Leonardo Sciascia | Italy | 210 |
| 39 | Un regard de sang | Seeing Red | Lina Meruane | Chile | 224 |
| 40 | Non traduit | Birds of America | Lorrie Moore | USA | 291 |
| 41 | La femme de Gilles | La Femme de Gilles | Madeleine Bourdouxhe | Belgium | 154 |
| 42 | L’Odyssée de Pénélope | The Penelopiad | Margaret Atwood | Canada | 159 |
| 43 | Ours | Bear | Marian Engel | Canada | 141 |
| 44 | La douleur porte un costume de plumes | Grief is the Thing With Feathers | Max Porter | UK | 114 |
| 45 | La Solution finale | The Final Solution | Michael Chabon | USA | 105 |
| 46 | Demoiselles aux moyens modestes | The Girls of Slender Means | Muriel Sparks | UK | 170 |
| 47 | L’empreinte de l’ange | The Mark of an Angel | Nancy Huston | Canada | 328 |
| 48 | La poursuite de l’amour | The Pursuit of Love | Nancy Mitford | UK | 253 |
| 49 | Non traduit | Up the Junction | Nell Dunn | UK | 133 |
| 50 | La couleur du lait | The Colour of Milk | Nell Leyshon | UK | 186 |
| 51 | Clair-obscur | Passing | Nella Larsen | USA | 122 |
| 52 | Non traduit | Devil by the Sea | Nina Bawden | UK | 175 |
| 53 | Falaises | Cliffs | Olivier Adam | France | 206 |
| 54 | La Théorie du panda | The Panda Theory | Pascal Garnier | France | 176 |
| 55 | L’affaire Lolita | The Bookshop | Penelope Fitzgerald | UK | 188 |
| 56 | Le mangeur de citrouille | The Pumpkin Eater | Penelope Mortimer | UK | 184 |
| 57 | Non traduit | The Murder of Halland | Pia Juul | Denmark | 167 |
| 58 | Non traduit | The Disappearance of Signora Giulia | Piero Chiara | Italy | 128 |
| 59 | Le retour du soldat | The Return of the Soldier | Rebecca West. | UK | 112 |
| 60 | Non traduit | Two Pints | Roddy Doyle | UK | 85 |
| 61 | Le son de ma voix | The Sound of My Voice | Ron Butlin | UK | 122 |
| 62 | Les braises | Ashes | Sándor Márai | Hungary | 219 |
| 63 | L’héritage d’Esther | Esther’s Inheritance | Sándor Márai | Hungary | 156 |
| 64 | Piège pour Cendrillon | Trap for Cinderella | Sebastien Japrisot | France | 240 |
| 65 | Non traduit | Stuck Like Lint | Shefali Tripathi Mehta | India | 156 |
| 66 | Nous avons toujours vécu au château | We Have Always Lived in the Castle | Shirley Jackson | USA | 234 |
| 67 | Le garçon qui n’existait pas | Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was | Sjón | Iceland | 150 |
| 68 | La cote 400 | The Library of Unrequited Love | Sophie Divry | France | 94 |
| 69 | Lettre d’une inconnue | Letter from an Unknown Woman | Stefan Zweig | Austria | 138 |
| 70 | Le voyage dans le passé | Journey into the Past | Stefan Zweig | Austria | 177 |
| 71 | Le chat qui venait du ciel | The Guest Cat | Takashi Hiraide | Japan | 130 |
| 72 | La sonate à Kreutzer | The Kreutzer Sonata | Tolstoy | Russia | 122 |
| 73 | Au commencement était la mer | In the Beginning was the Sea | Tomás González | Colombia | 221 |
| 74 | La passe dangereuse | The Painted Veil | W. Somerset Maugham | UK | 182 |
| 75 | Le pont d’Alexandre | Alexander’s Bridge | Willa Cather | USA | 176 |
| 76 | Une dame perdue | A Lost Lady | Willa Cather | USA | 190 |
| 77 | Non traduit | They Came Like Swallows | William Maxwell | USA | 140 |
| 78 | En lisant Tourgeniev | Reading Turgeniev | William Trevor | UK | 236 |
| 79 | Ma Maison en Ombrie | My House in Umbria | William Trevor | UK | 188 |
| 80 | La piscine | The Diving Pool | Yoko Ogawa | Japan | 71 |
| 81 | La formule préférée du professeur | The Housekeeper and the Professor | Yoko Ogawa | Japan | 244 |
I’m sure anyone can find some reading bliss among all these books. The numbers in blue correspond to books I’ve already read. As you can see, I have a lot to explore.
Enjoy! And let me know if you read any of these.
PS: There’s also the Novella tag at Whispering Gums.
And I was so focused on other people’s recommendations that I forgot two of my own: The Poor Man’s Son by Mouloud Feraoun and The Anarchist Banker by Fernando Pessoa.
Categories: ABOUT READING, Personal Posts
About reading, Personal Posts
Book Around the Corner 
Some wonderful novellas here and also many I haven’t read – I’m thinking of doing novellas next May too, so I will definitely be returning to this post many times 🙂 Thank you for such a great resource!
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Thank YOU! You did an amazing month of May with very ecclectic book choices.
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Thanks Emma 🙂
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I love The painted Veil. I’ve read Alexander’s Bridge, The panda Theory, My House in Umbria, The Ponder heart, the Robber Bridegroom, First Love, all the Rhys, and a couple of others.
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I hope some titles are new to you too!
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I also have a list of novellas on my blog – via the Novella tag in my sidebar – it includes Novellas I’ve reviewed, plus one or two specific posts about novellas. the definition is interesting actually because doing it by pages, which is roughly how I do it, isn’t quite right given printing and the wide variety in words per page. I made 200 pages my rough limit, though a couple go over, and I think some 200 page books are well in excess of the technical definition which is, as I understand it, by word count. (But, what readers count words!!)
But, technicality aside, I love your list. Quite a few new ones for me in there!
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Thanks for mentioning the Novella tag on your blog.
The definition isn’t clear but for me too, it’s around 200 pages. The thing is, French requests more words than English. So a 200 pages English book will be more than 200 pages in French because of the language.
And then, there’s the size of paperbacks: French ones are usually smaller.
In the end, a Penguin 200 pages book will be a lot more than 200 pages in its French paperback Folio edition.
Take Quartet by Jean Rhys: 144 pages in Penguin, 188 pages in Folio. +30%
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Yes, exactly, Emma, which makes page definition very loose, but I can live with it.
I liked your point about French needing more words than English. You notice this sort of thing when you listen to interpreters, don’t you. The difference between languages can be noticeable.
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Yes, you can also hear the difference when you listen to interpreters. But they don’t always translate everything. They don’t have time.
French is longer because of its structure but also because there are less words than in English. Where you have one verb (like: to elope), we’ll have a phrase because there’s no precise verb for it.
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Thanks Emma. I don’t think I knew that about fewer words. Love learning about language.
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Oh, oh, oh, there are two by William Trevor! I just love William Trevor’s writing!
Someone, I can’t remember who, hosted a meme called Novellas in November, which I thought was a terrific idea, because everybody is so busy in the leadup to Christmas, a short novel can be just what is needed at that time. This list would certainly come in handy if the meme comes back again:)
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I have never read William Trevor but I’m very tempted to try one of his books?
Kaggys mentions the Novellas in November meme too. Who knows, maybe the person who organises it will pop up?
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What an interesting list! Yes – certainly useful for the Novellas in November meme (which I think I took part in once!)
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Thanks. I hope it’ll give you ideas. Do you know who organises the Novellas in November meme?
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PoppyPeacockPens ran #novellanov in 2015 and so that’s probably what I’m thinking of. Her blog is currently private, alas, but she may be on Twitter or Instagram?
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Thanks. Too bad her blog is now private, I had a subscription.
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I have not been able to find the table of contents for Contes hassidiques, but my guess, based on the length, is that all or almost all of it can be found in English in The I. L. Peretz Reader, a marvelous book.
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Thanks! I have trouble finding out which books are available in English, especially for short stories, unless it’s a collection published by the author himself like Dubliners.
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I finally came up with an author and novella that isn’t on your list. Of course just about everything Muriel Spark and Penelope Fitzgerald wrote could be considered novellas, and since you have both of them on your list that is fine. However one of my favorite novellas is ‘The Visitor’ by Maeve Brennan.
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I have two lists, one is my Favorite Novellas by Women
And one is my Favorite Novellas by Men
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Thanks for the links.
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Thanks for the recommendation Tony. I’ve never heard of this book.
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Excellent list! There’s a nice mix of things I’ve read and liked, things I want to read, and things I’ve never heard of! I loved Pereira Maintains in particular 👍
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I received a lot of great recommendations about many books I’d never heard of. I hope it’ll help you discover new books.
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