Slim books you can read in a day

With our fast paced lives and constant rush against time, most readers these days prefer picking up slim books than heavy novels. And if you’ve just started reading, it’s best to warm up with the small ones first. Here we compile a list of a some interesting slim books which you can read in a day. Say goodbye to those half read novels on your bookshelf and hello to these quick reads!

Photo: Pexels

This slim tome will be something that will stay with you forever. Though the story sounds simplistic, the tale perfectly shows how many governments function. The animals of a farm revolt and throw the humans out of the farm, deciding they'll run it for themselves. They lay down basic rules and the way the story goes after is so scarily reminisent of how humans run their own affairs that the book will leave you questioning the world today.
Photo: Amazing Reads

This is an essay derived from the author's well known TEDx talk with the same name. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a renowned author and well known feminist and if you aren't familiar with her, this tiny book is just the place to start. She perfectly describes what it means to be a woman today and why the world needs feminism. This is a book everyone should read.

Photo: Fourth Estate; 1st edition

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

In an attempt to liberate modest women, Nikki teaches them the way to express their stories, unleashing creativity of the most exciting kind. A threat arrives when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife.

(Photo: HarperCollins Publishers Limited)

Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

This story is about a family of four, living in a 1-BHK flat in Mumbai. It talks about Em, the mother who fails in committing suicide and The Big Hoom, the father who tries to hold things together. The story highlights the true essence of being a family and is definitely a one-time-read.

(Photo: Penguin Books Limited)

Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake by Preeti Shenoy

This is a story of a single girl Nisha who struggles with unemployment but ends up marrying a rich and handsome guy, Shamir. Their marriage falls apart and her world comes crashing down. Akarsh comes into her life but as they get close Nisha is haunted by the devils of her past. ‘Tea for Two and a Piece of Cake’ makes one wonder how there’s so much to lose when you fall for someone but at the same time, there’s so much to gain as well.

(Photo: Ebury Press)

The Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond

A moving tale of love and friendship, ‘The Room on the Roof’ is Ruskin Bond’s masterpiece of adolescence. The book talks about the passion and ambition of young adults. Fluent, mature and memorable - the book has Mr Bond at his best.

(Photo: Penguin)

A House for Mr Misra by Jaishree Misra

Filled with wit and humour, ‘A House for Mr Misra’ is a story about a man who is all set to build a beachside home in Kerala. However, life is not so easy and he faces many ups and downs-- like annoying neighbours, union men and the legislature.

(Photo: Westland Publications Ltd.)

The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

‘Interpreter of Maladies’ talks about the identity of immigrants trying to start a new life abroad and the cultural displacement they suffer both in their native and adopted countries. The characters in Jhumpa Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

(Photo: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

An international bestseller translated into some 70 languages, ‘The Alchemist’ is a story about a boy, Santiago, who meets an Englishman who wants to learn the secret of turning any metal into gold from a famous alchemist who lives at an oasis on the way to the pyramids. While traveling, Santiago begins listening to the desert and discovering the Soul of the World.

(Photo: Harper Collins)

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami

Sumire and K are best friends but K falls in love with her. However, he knows his love is unrequited. Another friend Miu, soon calls from a Greek island to tell that Sumire has mysteriously vanished. Written by one of the finest Japanese author, ‘Sputnik Sweetheart’ is an easy-to-read book you can finish in a day.

(Photo: Random House)

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

For Mitch Albom the person who understood him when he was young and searching, and gave him sound advice was Morrie Schwartz, his college professor from nearly 20 years ago. He rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life and visited him in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final lesson on how to live.

(Photo: Broadway Books)

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

This is a novel about three wives and the secrets their husband’s kept from them for decades. As a result of an accidental death, a mother’s grief, and a cousin’s betrayal, the ladies’ lives are now intertwined. The husband’s individual secrets are discovered and are forgiven, but a price a different wife has set.

(Photo: Penguin Random House)

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Holly is a country girl turned New York café society girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men hoping to marry one of them. Over the course of a year, she slowly befriends the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle.

(Photo: Vintage)

Serious Men by Manu Joseph

In his debut novel, Manu Joseph expertly picks apart the dynamics of this complex world, offering humorous takes on love and its strange workings and a hilarious portrayal of men’s runaway egos and ambitions.

(Photo: W. W. Norton & Company)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone is blessed and cursed, at the same time, with a mind so intelligent that it perceived the world entirely literally. In the book, he sets out to solve the murder of his neighbour’s dog with whom he connected way more than he did with most humans.

(Photo: Vintage)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

Reading a book from the Hogwarts' library, which hash fables in it taken from ancient times along with notes and guidance by Dumbledore himself, is a magical feeling beyond explanation. ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ is a great book to have in a Potterhead's collection, withstories that every child who wants to perform magic must know.

(Photo: Bloomsbury)

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

‘The Little Prince’ is the story of a young boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning about the quirky adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters.

(Photo: Mariner Books)

The Windfall by Diksha Basu

Mr. and Mrs. Jha’s lives have been defined by cramped spaces but their life takes a major twist when Mr. Jha comes into an enormous and unexpected sum of money and upgrades his lifestyle. The move sets off a chain of events that rock their neighbours, their marriage, and their son-- ultimately forcing the Jha family to reckon with what really matters.

(Photo: Random House Audio)

The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna

Twinkle Khanna’s first fiction book, ‘The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad’ is a collection of utterly magical stories with a certain simplicity and an element of everyday life.

(Photo: Juggernaut Publication)

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Greg has only one friend, Earl, and together they make movies, until his mother asks him to befriend Rachel who has been diagnosed with leukemia. When Rachel stops her treatment, Greg and Earl decide that the best thing to do is to make a film for her and this becomes a turning point in each of their lives.

(Photo: Abrams Books)

The Company of Women by Khushwant Singh

‘The Company of Women’ is the story of a man's sexual exploits, and how it defines his life. With exceptional writing, humour and a compelling narrative, Khushwant Singh takes us on a journey of what it means to succumb to the desires of the flesh.

(Photo: Penguin Books)

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie

This page-turning novel centers around Luka, who must save his father from dying. Luka’s father has gone into deep sleep and no one can wake him up. To keep him from slipping away entirely, Luka enters a magical world to steal the Fire of Life.

(Photo: Random House Trade Paperbacks)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

When a lady suffering from temporary nervous depression is taken to a summer house for treatment, to relax and overcome her mental issues, she has nothing more to do than to stare at the yellow wallpaper and fall in love with it to an extent where the only thing that comforts her is the colour of the wallpaper and its smell.

(Photo: 12th Media Services)

Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore

Bimala is torn between balancing her home and work-life. Her attempts to resolve the pressure throw light on the conflict of India itself - the partition, the aftermath and the unrest.

(Photo: Rupa)

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

A world classic and a timeless testament to the human spirit, ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ is Anne Frank's extraordinary journal, written in the Amsterdam attic where she and her family hid from the Nazis for two years. The book talks about clashes with her mother, romance, facing hunger, fear of discovery and eventually, death - all of which a typical teenager would face in the days of the concentration camps.

(Photo: Fingerprint)

English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee

Agastya is a child of an Indian elite couple and his friends dearly call him August. While his peers study in Yale and Harvard, he finds himself in Madna, the hottest town in India, doing a government job. ‘English, August’ is a beautifully written story that takes us through the journey of self discovery.

(Photo: Faber And Faber)

Sula by Toni Morrison

‘Sula’ revolves around the lives of two black women in America who were childhood pals but as they grew up, the bond between them did not remain as strong. Years later when they meet, they see each other’s shocking realities which leads to confrontation and eventually, reconciliation.

(Photo: Vintage)

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Romantic and adorable, with a perfect balance of heart-wrenching moments, this story is about Natasha, a girl who believes in science and facts, and Daniel, who falls in love with Natasha. The story revolves around the law of the universe, and how every moment in our lives bring us to a single moment.

(Photo: Corgi Childrens)