Fall is officially here. It’s shorter days and sweater weather. Time for taking a break and getting cozy with a good read. This month’s titles include a modern retelling of the killing of Mary Queen of Scots’ closest confidant, a novella by a popular Swedish writer and a short novel by a South African based in Cape Town. Each title presents a singular perspective. Power and intrigue dominate the first. In the second the author writes a beautiful, description of love and loss. In the third a private individual begins to change some long-held beliefs. Although short in length these titles are large in scope and content. Take a break and try one this fall.
“200 Pages, more or less” is a monthly blog post uncovering the many shorter reads available in the collection of the Richmond Public Library. Some are older, some recent, mostly fiction and some are translated from the original. I invite you to choose a short novel that may find a place in your busy schedule.
Rizzio by Denise Mina. (2021; 118p.)
David Rizzio was the confidant of Mary Queen of Scots and possibly the former lover of her husband, Lord Darnley. The story begins with a tennis match and builds to murder. Lord Darnley, Mary’s husband, is jealous of the close relationship between his wife and Rizzio and participates in the plot to kill Rizzio and frighten his wife into submission. This fast paced, modernized fiction reveals the cruel heart of men drunk on wealth and power.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrick Backman; translated by Alice Menzies. (2015; 76p.)
Fredrick Backman is a well loved, Swedish writer living in Stockholm. His books have been translated and published in over thirty-five countries. This short, sweet novella is a reflection on aging and relationships and the memories that bind us. A grandfather, a grandson, and a son. A mind, fading with age and a wife, long since passed, returning in brief moments. By repeating past experiences and remembering favorite people and places this grandfather holds tightly to moments while acknowledging his ultimate loss. Backman has gently illustrated a secret and little known phase of life.
An Island: a novel by Karen Jennings. (2022; 210p.)
Samuel lives a solitary life as a lightkeeper on an island somewhere of the coast of Africa. The author does not share the country that is close to the island, just the history of violence. Displaced from their farm when Samuel was a child, his family is forced to live a life of poverty in the city. “In the city, days emerged already soiled.” This short novel shifts between Samuel’s simple island life and his memories of growing up aimless, uneducated, and part of a resistance that ends with twenty-three years in prison. He is comfortable and grateful that he has landed here, on this island, with his garden and his chickens. Once each month the supply boat comes and there’s always a box of leftovers from the charity shop. His routine is disrupted the morning a body washes ashore and he discovers the man is still alive.
