10 best biographies of all time

11 amazing reads under 200 pages

Al Woodworth | September 30, 2022

You can’t have a list of short books without at least including Fitzgerald’s most cutting and slim novel about a mysterious millionaire, an epic party, a young man new to the glitz and the glamour, and a woman that mesmerizes them all. Of another era, this novel captures the la-di-dah opulence of the Long Island upper crust and the dark underbelly of it too, which makes it a page-turner. Though, there’s also something nostalgic about reading a novel that catapults us back to high school—sitting at desks, with a teacher expounding on Fitzgerald’s contribution to American letters. Either way, this novel, as we know, packs a punch at just 145 pages. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 145

A Humans of New York post in 2019 pictured an elderly Black woman decked out in fur and florals. The post began, “My mom threw me out of the house at seventeen for getting pregnant, then had me arrested when I tried to get my clothes. Then she f***** the head of parole to try to keep me in jail.” There was no burying the lede with Miss Stephanie Johnson, a.k.a. Tanqueray, retired burlesque dancer. And her memoir is one dizzying lede after another as she careens through the high life, the night life, and the lowlives she’s encountered in New York City over the decades. No tea is left unsipped, no detail is too risqué, and she has receipts for all of it in this hilarious, unapologetic, illuminating, and riveting memoir. There may not be a picture of Tanqueray next to “irrepressible” in the dictionary, but there ought to be. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

Page count: 181

Expansive and eye-opening, Mohsin Hamid’s novels confront issues of race, class, and migration with a dash of magic and genuine inquisition. In his latest, The Last White Man, Hamid dissects the state of race by exploring a world in which people wake up with different colored skin, and thus, are treated differently by their neighbors, the media, their partners, and their family. Throughout this slim love story, the question of identity lurks everywhere, as white people become brown and the world changes around them. With cool steadiness, Hamid’s tale is a reminder that we, as individuals and as a society, have invented racism. This is a book you can read in one sitting, but I promise you, it will stick with you longer after that. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 188

I was thrilled to see Claire Keegan’s novella on the Booker Prize longlist. Bill Furlong is a married father-of-five coal merchant in a small Irish town. His entire life has been spent trying to shed the stain of being “born on the wrong side of the blanket” as my Nana Lucey would put it. Until his business dealings with the local convent—and the Magdalen laundry housed there—open his eyes to a wrong, one which is safely nestled in the status quo and fiercely protected by the Church. We loved this gorgeous, luminous, tiny novel, which has big, universally important things to impart, like the need for compassion, and how looking the other way can be an injustice in and of itself. Fingers crossed for that Booker prize. —Vannessa Cronin, Amazon Editor

Page count: 70

In The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, Philyaw wades into the lives of strong southern Black women as they reckon with their love lives and sexuality, the legacy of parents, and the subtle and profound ways church and societal norms dictate their daily experience. Told in short bursts, the stories of these women and their friendships come alive, beating with tenderness and imperfection, and build upon one another to create a buzzy melody of female determination. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 189

You Will Not Have My Hate made my skin grow tingly and pricked my eyes with tears. But it also filled me with hope. A slim book, even with extra space on the page, Antoine Leiris has written an achingly beautiful memoir about the death of his wife, Hélène, in the 2015 Paris terror attacks. Told during the immediate days after his wife’s murder Leiris, together with his 17-month-old son, grapples with how they must “go on living alone, without the aid of the star whom they swore allegiance.” Leiris writes with intimacy and galvanizing affection. But what makes this memoir soar is Leiris’ refusal to surrender to hatred and anger. Humming with humanity, grace and intelligence, You Will Not Have My Hate will alter the ground below you and the sky above. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 122

Similar to The Great Gatsby, this short, but epic, sojourn of a single man and a battle with a marlin at sea, seems like required reading in the read-in-a-sitting category. A twentieth century classic, The Old Man and the Sea is a riveting portrait of courage and endurance, of triumph and hope, and phrases that will stick with you long after you finish your ocean adventure. I give you: “It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.” —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 128

Elliot Ackerman is a war veteran and a National Book Award finalist, and he has written a short, mesmerizing, and profound novel that I think is even better than his first. Eden was once a warrior, but he is now a wounded vet constrained to a hospital bed, covered in burns and existing on life support. His wife, Mary, cares for their daughter and struggles with the reality of her once-strong husband deteriorating from his injuries. What makes this story different is that it is narrated by Eden’s good friend, who was killed in the war and is waiting to pass from this world. His omniscience is colored by his empathy and understanding for the family, for Eden, and for the very real sacrifices of those who serve. As we watch the present and learn of their past, the book takes on a dreamlike quality that strikes right to the heart and, by doing so, seems all-so-real. This is an illuminating, highly emotional read. —Chris Schluep, Amazon Editor

Page count: 172

I read this memoir in one sitting—in a haze of grief, tears, and heartbreak. Rob Delaney is known for his laugh-out-loud performance on Catastrophe, but this memoir isn’t about that. It’s about the death of his third child, Henry. It’s about the fourteen months, that “gorgeous” baby Henry spent in the hospital for a brain tumor. There is anger and unthinkable hurt that Delaney expresses—and of course his trademark wit is sprinkled throughout—but also the unabashed wonder and joy of being in love with his baby boy and being a parent. This belongs on the shelf with Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking (which Delaney references throughout), When Breath Becomes Air, Grief is a Thing With Feathers. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 196 (publishing November 29)

Taking place over a single day in Los Angeles, Christopher Isherwood perfectly captures the heartbreak and ache of a professor trying to maintain his daily routine after the sudden and tragic death of his partner. With LA as the backdrop, Isherwood's novel takes on a certain glamor, wit, and loneliness that make this short novel an absolute pleasure. Isherwood has said this is one of his best novels, and it’s easy to feel the ache of his characters grief and the wonder at happiness. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 162

Okay. I know, it’s ten pages over. But Colson Whitehead won his second Pulitzer Prize for this novel. The Nickel Boys isbased on a real school for boys in Florida that closed in 2011 after more than 100 years of existence and 100 years of purportedly turning “bad boys” into good men. The novel follows Elwood Curtis, a promising young Black boy living in the Jim Crow South who is thrown into a juvenile reformatory school called Nickel Academy for a crime he didn’t commit. The school is a horror show of violence—while Elwood tries to internalize Martin Luther King Jr.’s maxims, his friend Turner takes a different approach to survive—and their decisions will forever change the course of their lives. —Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor

Page count: 210