Any ideas for short novel choice for book group?

[Clawdy]

My book group choice next, and for various reasons, we've got less time to read it, so I need a shortish novel! Any ideas?

Eradication, by Jonathan Miles. Very thought provoking and not too long, my best read this month so far!

@leafinthewind Definitely Olive Kitteridge, first book I read by Elizabeth Strout who is very high up on my list of favourite authors.
Also try A Psalm for the Wild-built by Becky Chambers, lovely read.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan or anything else by her

Foster by Claire Keegan
Convenience Store Woman by Sayata Muraka

Shy by Max Porter is also a great read!

‘Testament of Mary’ by Colm Toibin

Some great suggestions here, I will be checking up on lots of these titles, thanks!

Why not?

Not sure if this has been mentioned but this book inspired a lot of discussion at my book group:
So Late in the Day by Clare Keegan.

I mean, each to their own but I found it an utterly bleak read.

I agree, but so is Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These, which is about poverty, small town class prejudice, institutional cruelty and the oppression of women, and So Late in the Day, which is about the self-pity and anger of a common or garden misogynist.

I tend to be slightly puzzled as to her popularity. Her work is beautifully and carefully written, but her vision is unvaryingly bleak. Perhaps it’s in part the brevity.

I’ve noticed other publishers grasping that readers seem to like short stories sold as books — several I know of are commissioning their writers to write a short story they will publish as a tiny book, and Colm Toibin has (slightly cheekily) brought out an old short story from one of his collections and published it as a short book.

To be fair I Who have Never Known Men is a pretty bleak book too.

Yes, absolutely. That’s another book whose recent surge in popularity I’m bemused by! I read it in French at some point in the 90s, and know it was reissued in a rejigged translation, but not sure why it was so huge, I remember it as being unrelievedly grim. I know the author fled Belgium with her family when the Nazis invaded.

Another vote for Three Days in June by Anne Tyler. Deals with some themes of being middle-aged in a lovely way.

A Month in the Country by JL Carr. A GLORIOUS book.And super short.

Laughter in the Dark, Vladimir Nabakov. A chilling story of psychological abuse.
Then and Now, Somerset Maugham. The story of Machiavelli.

The Comfort of Strangers, Ian McEwan.

I’m delighted there are so many other JL Carr fans on here! Though I’ve never dared to read any of his others, in case they spoil the perfection of AMITC. My former publisher published one of his novels and said he was incredibly cantankerous.

Oh, I think it would be a great book group read. I'm not in a book group I've discussed it at length with lots of people!

My book club read I Who Have Never Known men last year. I absolutely loved it and it was very popular with the other members too.

Heartburn by Nora Ephron (has bonus recipes)

Recommend these 3:

On Chesil Beach
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Before the Coffee Gets Cold

I will definitely read A Month in the Country now.

Yes, we did A Month In The Country a few years ago, everyone liked it.

I would agree, and most of our group hated it, but I only recommend it because it led to one of the most animated nights of discussion - marriage, sex, marital expectation - all the biggies…