The Whining Stranger on Books and Reading: Wanted: Slim, Elegant Volumes

Every year since 2000, I have assiduously recorded every book that I've read in its entirety. I type the list into a file of my computer, and sometimes go back and look at past years to see where my reading has taken me. It's another way of documenting my existence. There are rules, of course. I can only record a book on the list when I've read the entire text. (Sometimes, with Penguins or Oxford Classics, I skip the Introduction and let myself off the hook.) If I start a book in one year but finish it in another, I record it in the year in which I completed it. Each year I strive to read fifty full books. Each year I fall short: sometimes by just a few, sometimes by a dozen.

This year, I'm on an embarrassingly slow pace. I got busy with university administrative stuff in the winter. I traveled a lot in April and spent more time listening to my Discman than reading on planes. Don Quixote is, of course, killing me. And the next read on my agenda, Ralph Ellison's Complete Essays, at 800+ pages, threatens to slow me down all the more.

So, I'm in need of slim, elegant volumes. What are the greatest novels, for instance, under 200 pages. Or better, under 150. My partner and I just did The Great Gatsby again. That's surely on the list. As would be, hm, Nella Larsen's Passing? Don DeLillo's The Body Artist? The new Philip Roth, which is short and well-reviewed, should go on my to-read list. I have a copy that a friend passed on.

But others?