Hey.
At first when I had this idea I planned on creating a listicle with 12 or more options that I would’ve ‘borrowed’ from Goodreads or Book Riot. Then when it came time to draft this I decided to look on my bookshelf instead and recommend books I have that I believe you can in fact read in two or so sittings. Here are my quick recommendations.
Four Shorts Books You Can Read In A Weekend
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah
I read The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born in high school. I believe it was part of CAPE literatures in English. I loved it and it is short at 183 pages.
Summary:
A railway freight clerk in Ghana attempts to hold out against the pressures that impel him toward corruption in both his family and his country. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is the novel that catapulted Ayi Kwei Armah into the limelight. The novel is generally a satirical attack on the Ghanaian society during Kwame Nkrumah’s regime and the period immediately after independence in the 1960s. It is often claimed to rank with Things Fall Apart as one of the high points of post-colonial African Literature.
Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
I read this for the first time when I was in university, if I recall correctly, I borrowed a copy from one of my best friend’s housemates when we all lived on campus at UWI Mona. And I didn’t connect with the story then. Then I re-read it in 2024 and I loved it. It is 148 pages.
Summary:
Annie John is a haunting and provocative story of a young girl growing up on the island of Antigua. A classic coming-of-age story in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Kincaid’s novel focuses on a universal, tragic, and often comic theme: the loss of childhood.
An adored only child, Annie has until recently lived an idyllic life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful presence, who is the very center of the little girl’s existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother’s benign shadow. Looking back on her childhood, she reflects, “It was in such a paradise that I lived.” When she turns twelve, however, Annie’s life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her. She begins to question the cultural assumptions of her island world; at school she instinctively rebels against authority; and most frighteningly, her mother, seeing Annie as a “young lady,” ceases to be the source of unconditional adoration and takes on the new and unfamiliar guise of adversary. At the end of her school years, Annie decides to leave Antigua and her family, but not without a measure of sorrow, especially for the mother she once knew and never ceases to mourn. “For I could not be sure,” she reflects, “whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world.”
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Wide Sargasso Sea is another book I read in high school and loved. My original copy is falling apart and so last year I bought another edition. If you read Jane Eyre, please read Wide Sargasso Sea.
Summary:
Wide Sargasso Sea, a masterpiece of modern fiction, was Jean Rhys’s return to the literary center stage. She had a startling early career and was known for her extraordinary prose and haunting women characters. With Wide Sargasso Sea, her last and best-selling novel, she ingeniously brings into light one of fiction’s most fascinating characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. This mesmerizing work introduces us to Antoinette Cosway, a sensual and protected young woman who is sold into marriage to the prideful Mr. Rochester. Rhys portrays Cosway amidst a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.
Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
I read Lucy in 2024 and I loved it. I joined Kiki (from IG) Jamaica Kincaid slow readalong and I intend to complete reading all of Jamaica Kincaid’s work.
Here’s what Lucy is about:
Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies,, comes to North America to work as a au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are thrice blessed – handsome, rich and seemingly happy. Yet, almost at once, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With mingled anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers’ world and compares them to the vivid realities of her native place. Lucy has no illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she is presently.
Lucy is 164 pages and I plan to re-read it in 2026.
Book summaries from Goodreads, except for Lucy which I copied from the 2025 paperback reissue from Picador.
Happy reading!
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Let’s chat a bit.
