10 Books To Read If You're Short Of Time

1. Amsterdam (Ian McEwan, 1998) (178 pages)

Clive Linley, eminent composer, currently working on The Milennial Symphony, and Vernon Halliday, editor of the broadsheet The Judge, are connected by their friendship, and their love for one woman: Molly Lane. Molly's funeral, at the start of the novel, has far-reaching conseqences for both Clive and Vernon, as well as for another of Molly's former lovers, foreign secretary Julian Garmony.


2. Animal Farm (George Orwell, (113 pages)

One night on Manor Farm, Major the boar recounts his vision of a utopia where his fellow creatures are no longer the slaves of humans. Before long his dream comes true, and for a short while all animals really are equal. But then the clever pigs educate themselves and soon learn how to extend their own power.


3. The Awakening (Kate Chopin, 1899) (116 pages)

Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, the plot centers on Edna Pontellier and her struggle between her increasingly unorthodox views on femininity and motherhood with the prevailing social attitudes of the turn-of-the-century American South.


4. The Body in the Library (Agatha Christie, 1942) (191 pages)

When the Bantry's wake up to find the body of a beautiful, young stranger in their library, Dolly Bantry knows there's only one person to call: her old friend Miss Marple.


5. The Comforters (Muriel Spark, 1957) (188 pages)

Caroline Rose is plagued by the tapping of typewriter keys and the strange, detached narration of her every thought and action. Caroline has an unusual problem - she realises she is in a novel.


6. The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925) (115 pages)

Nick Carraway, the narrator, a young man from the Midwest, moves to fictional West Egg in the hope of making a career for himself in the bond business. When his neighbour, the eponymous Jay Gatsby, invites him to one of his infamous parties, Nick, like everyone else, starts to wonder who Gatsby really is.


7. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories (Oscar Wilde, 1891) (192 pages)

This is a collection of short, semi-comic mystery stories written at the height of Wilde's creative powers. It includes: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, The Canterville Ghost, The Sphinx Without a Secret, and The Model Millionaire.


8. Silent Night (Mary Higgins Clark, 1995) (177 pages)

On Christmas Eve, hoping to lift her two sons' spirits after their father is diagnosed with leukemia, Catherine Dornan takes them to see Rockefeller Center's famous Christmas tree; while there, seven-year-old Brian notices a woman taking his mother's wallet. A St. Christopher medal tucked inside the wallet saved his grandfather's life in World War II, and believing that it will protect his father now, Brian follows the thief into the subway.


9. The Small Hand: A Ghost Story (Susan Hill, 2010) (167 pages)

Returning home from a client visit late one evening, Adam Snow takes a wrong turn and stumbles across the derelict old White House. Compelled by curiousity he decides to enter, only to be repelled when he feels the unmistakeable sensation of a small hand creeping onto his own.


10. Surfacing (Margaret Atwood, 1972) (186 pages)

The protagonist, a young woman from whose perspective the book is told but whose name is never revealed, returns to northern Quebec to the remote island of her childhood, with her lover and two friends, to investigate the disappearance of her father.


Do you wish you had more time to read? Which books would you add to this list? Did you enjoy any of these books? Let me know, either in the comments below or via Twitter!