Some Novella in November inspiration!
Do you want to take part in Novellas in November but aren’t sure where to start? To kick off our month celebrating the short novel, I’ve pulled together a list of novellas that I’ve reviewed on my blog over the last seven years! Just click on the titles to read my reviews.
Don’t forget to check back during the week. It’s Contemporary Novellas week and I have some really interesting reviews lined up.
Remember, if you have posted for Novellas in November, then don’t forget to tag myself or Rebecca and we will add your post to the master list.
Contemporary Novellas
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Light Boxes by Shane Jones
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Barker
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore
The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Point Omega by Don DeLillo
Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
Horses by Keith Ridgway
The Hunters by Claire Messud
Exquisite Cadavers by Meena Kandesamy
Calm With Horses (from Young Skins) by Colin Barrett
Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann
Slade House by David Mitchell
Classic Novellas
The Visitor by Maeve Brennan
The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Hard Life by Flann O’Brien
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Assumption of Rogues & Rascals by Elizabeth Smart
Ice by Anna Kavan
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
Novellas in Translation
The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder
The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Michael Emmerich
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky
Now You’re One of Us by Asa Nonami, translated by Michael Volek & Mitsuku Volek
Piercing by Ryu Murakami, translated by Ralph McCarthy
A Certain Smile by Francoise Sagan, translated by Irene Ash
Beside the Sea by Véronique Olmi, translated by Adriana Hunter
Ghachar Ghochar! by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Shrinrath Perur
Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba, translated by Lisa Dillman
The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Non-Fiction Novellas
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
This Is Water by Davod Foster Wallace
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
So, what do you think? Have you read any of these or does anything here take your fancy? Do let me know if you have any good novellas lined up to read this month!
Cathy746books View All →
I am a 40 something book buying addict trying to reduce the backlog one book at a time!
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What a brilliant list, Cathy! Novellas have become a firm favourite with me, too.
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I was actually surprised that I had reviewed so many.
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What a great selection.
Slade House is very well timed, and I just gave it to a friend as a recommended read.
Beside the Sea was atmospheric in French but I found it flat and depressing in English when I tried to give it to someone (but they didn’t mind).
I just finished Train Dreams by Denis Johnson and gave that to a friend too, highly recommending it to her.
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I adored Slade House – it is such fun but also pretty creepy too!
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Fab selection selection Cathy and very helpful!
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Thanks Nicki, I was surprised I’d reviewed so many novellas!
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Brilliant list – so many great ideas!!
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Thank you!
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Of the ones you list, I am going to mention the ones that really stood out as special for me: ‘Desperate Characters’ by Paula Fox, ‘Visitors’ by Maeve Brennan, ‘Jesus’ Son’ by Denis Johnson, ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys.
The one I most want to read is ‘A Certain Smile’ by Francoise Sagan.
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I loved Desperate Characters – I feel like not enough people know about it.
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It’s seriously impressive when you stack them all up like this! I know people will get some good ideas here.
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Great list Cathy! So many that I enjoyed and others for me to seek out too.
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I’ve read a handful of the classic novellas on your list — Woolf, James and Rhys for example — but fewer recent ones. (A Room of One’s Own must fall into the non-fiction novella category, I’d guess.) I will be reading a couple of #NovNov titles, but I shan’t be committing to specific items until they actually come down from the shelf!
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Excellent list! The Diving Pool was very good. I did not warm up to Buddha in the Attic. I found the plural voice too jarring–Wives of Los Alamos, which came out around the same time, also used it.
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I love Yoko Ogawa – have yet to be disappointed by her.
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What a great list, thank you! I’m not sure I can join in as I don’t think I can keep up with the weekly prompts, but the challenge and this list have made me very aware of novellas – I know that might seem like a stupid thing to say, but it just has, I’ve always thought I wasn’t really a short story/novella reader but I am without realising it! I need to read more in translation too and your list is full of good ideas.
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You don’t have to follow the weekly prompts at all Jane – I have come to really love novellas – they are generally much more concentrated and focused than a novel
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Really interesting list. I’ve read a few of these… Visitation (amazing), A Sense of Being (I preferred his The Noise of Time, both of which are more short novels than novellas), The Yellow Wallpaper (amazing, but… it really is a short story… no matter).
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There is a really thin line between a novella and a long short story isn’t there? I adored Visitation – I was so surprised by it.
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this is such a fantastic idea for a readathon! i feel short stories get a lot of attention and obviously novels do too, but novellas are hardly talked about because they fall in between the two. Im currently reading and loving Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag so hopefully i can post a review for the readathon soon ☺ also Aoko Matsuda’s novella “The Girl Who is Getting Married” is an excellent novella that i read earlier this year 👌
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Oh Fatma, I read Ghachar Ghochar last year and I really loved it! Would love to hear what you think of it 🙂
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I read a lot of cozy mysteries and they do write a lot of novellas between full length books. I do plan on listening to a couple of versions of The Christmas Carol this year, so one in November sounds perfect.
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