The Occasional 15

J.L. Carr, Annie Ernaux, Musa Okwonga, Toni Morrison, Alfred Hayes, Seichō Matsumoto, Duff Cooper, Elias Canetti, Claire Keegan, Stefan Zweig, Neil Sentance, Jessica Au, Deborah Levy and many more.

For new subscribers: The Fortnightly doesn’t appear during the school holidays. The Occasional is for paid subscribers.

Here are 30 books of under 150 pages for your reading pleasure this summer. Of course, they’d be wonderful if you were curled up in front of the fire in the winter, too.

This was prompted by Chris Power’s recent Guardian list 20 Brilliant Books You Can Read in a Day (there’s little overlap). A shout-out to Penguin Modern Classics and Fitzcarraldo Editions, particularly rich sources for such books.

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A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr

Possibly the most perfectly-shaped short novel written in English in the last 100 years, and it’s a summer tale. Coming in at 85 pages. In my own words:

One of the marvels of this narrative is how, somehow, it still contains multitudes. It is about trauma, community, friendship, the countryside, time, the pleasures of work, simplicity, memory, England, architecture, art, archaeology (of various sorts) and, yes, love. And all this is seamlessly done.

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Simple Passion by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie)

There are quite a few short volumes by Ernaux in the lovely Fitzcarraldo Editions series. The Years goes over my randomly-chosen 150 pages, so I’ve chosen Simple Passion, a mere 48 pages: but as with all Ernaux it feels like it has greater heft. She reflects on a two-year affair with a married man. Of course it’s not ‘simple’. And the next one certainly isn’t either.

I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux (translated by Tanya Leslie)

Another by Ernaux from Fitzcarraldo, this time up to 77 pages. This addresses her mother’s dementia and is characteristically clear-sighted and brutal. It’s extremely moving, and thought-provoking.

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In the End, It Was All About Love by Musa Okwonga

From my own extended comments:

There are a lot of pleasures in this book: the sentence by sentence quality, the intimate and engaging voice, the evocation of Berlin and its social life, the fluid structure (and, by the way, the lovely small-format production by Rough Trade Books).

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Recitatif by Toni Morrison

Recitatif was Morrison’s only short story - amazing, but true and surely significant. It qualifies as a full book because this edition includes Zadie Smith’s brilliant introductory essay ‘Somebody In There After All’.

‘Recitatif’ is built on a conceit that is a kind of trick which makes you think ‘Yes, of course, why did no-one else think of doing that?’ The narrator is Twyla, a woman looking back over her long relationship with Roberta, starting in childhood. We know that one woman is black, and one is white, but are never told which (and, no spoiler, we never definitely settle the question). Instead, when you hold the story up against the light, depending on how you tilt it, from page to page the colour of the protagonists shimmies. More from me.

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Chess by Stefan Zweig (translated by Anthea Bell)

Zweig completed just one full novel, the haunting Beware of Pity, and there are many shorter books for our pleasure. Chess (1941), sometimes published as The Royal Game, is set on a cruise ship heading towards Buenos Aires on which the world chess champion is travelling. The mysterious Mr B takes him on. A year after the publication Zweig and his wife, Jewish exiles from Austria, took their own lives in Brazil.

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Below the break, for paid subscribers, short books include Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au, Passing by Nella Larsen, The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy, Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, Old School Ties and Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor, A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd, Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse, A Run in the Park by David Park, This Hostel Life by Melatu Uche Okorie, Spent Light by Lara Pawson, The Voices of Marrakesh by Elias Canetti, Lady L by Romain Gary, Small Things Like These & Foster by Claire Keegan, Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper, Elizabeth Bishop by Jonathan F.S. Post, My Face for the World to See & The Girl on the Via Flaminia by Alfred Hayes, Tokyo Express & Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto and Ridge and Furrow & Water and Sky by Neil Sentance.