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Thursday 17 March 2016

Shorter books are coming back.....

Professor Tom Ressencourt, in a recent article for the Literary Review observed that the shorter novel is making a comeback. He said, " Short novels are for busy people, for the journey to work, for the weekend, for the beach.  They have no padding, no stuffing, no unnecessary waffle to get the page count up to 500 – just the story/the action/the characters/the dialogue. They are for the modern age.  They are for today's reader. Frankly I couldn't care less what type of coffee the hero prefers or what time he gets up in the morning.  I want the story to keep moving along.  And there are plenty of examples of  knock-out short novels in the past."

Professor Ressencourt's list included:
The Great Gatsby
Animal Farm
Peter Pan
A Christmas Carol
Frankenstein
Northanger Abbey
Fahrenheit 451
The Old Man and The Sea
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Big Sleep
Bonjour Tristesse
Heart of Darkness.                                         They are all short novels.  About 200 pages.