Book Recommendations for Busy Schedules!
The most frequent response I get from people finding out that I’m an avid reader is something to the effect of: “Wow, that’s so great! I’d love to read more, but I’m way too busy.” To that I say, “Join the club.”
In all seriousness though, a busy schedule is only as much of an excuse for not reading as you allow it to be. Think of all the time you spend each day that you could be devoting, even partially, to reading (I’m looking at you, social media). Even spending five minutes a day on a book will gradually add up to noticeable progress!
Although I can’t tell anyone how to spend their time or change their habits, it is my hope that I can nudge someone in the right direction by turning “I’m too busy to read”, to at least “I’m going to make an effort to read more” through these book suggestions. Each book is either a bit over 100 pages (at the most), or suitably organized to allow for easy integration into a daily reading schedule!
Novels:
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The Pearl
By John Steinbeck
This novel is actually smaller than the other book Steinbeck is known for, Of Mice and Men. A retelling of a Mexican folktale, The Pearl follows one family as their lives change as a result of poor as well as good fortune, beginning with main character Kino’s infant son being stung by a scorpion, leading to Kino finding a beautiful pearl that completely alters his family’s social standing. Extraordinarily developed despite its short length, this novel does a great job of making you sympathize with the main characters while also allowing you to remain detached enough to grasp its powerful themes.
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The Subterraneans
By Jack Kerouac
Jack Kerouac is known by most for his novel On the Road, but The Subterraneans was actually my introductory novel to the author. This novel, like many of Kerouac’s, is only semi-fictional. The Subterraneans documents the author’s real-life relationship with an African American woman in 1950’s San Francisco (although Kerouac was actually living in New York at the time) as they struggle with each other’s pasts and the resulting differing approaches to living. This novel is great because after you’re done reading you can look into the lives of the author and the people he based his characters on. If you decide to delve deeper into Kerouac’s work (which I highly recommend), this information will allow you to recognize the actual people that show up repeatedly in his work.
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Heart of Darkness
By Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness follows main character Charles Marlow as he recounts his time traveling up the Congo River and the atrocities he witnessed to some fellow sailors. Although the main themes of the novel are imperialism and racism, the real driving force of the story is Mr. Kurtz, an ivory trader who has become completely entrenched in the local culture and the wealth it allows him to earn whom Marlow has become enamored with and is determined to meet.
Collections of Short Stories:
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8 Plus 1
By Robert Cormier
You may have heard of Robert Cormier through his novel The Chocolate War, which was a controversial book when it was released. 8 Plus 1 is very different from The Chocolate War, but both books do a great job of portraying everyday people in their everyday lives. Each of the nine short stories is preceded by a brief explanation by the author in regards to his thought process, from the initial development of each idea based on an object or occurrence in his life to actually writing the complete story. This is a great choice if you’re a fan of the “slice of life” genre.
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The Illustrated Man
By Ray Bradbury
If you love classic science fiction in the style of The Twilight Zone or Bradbury’s most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, this is the book for you! That being said, I’d really recommend it to anyone who loves to imagine what it would be like if our world functioned in any number of different ways, from having some amazing type of technology that makes life easier to the existence of some type of magic that completely changed the structure of society. Although a bit large, it’s super easy to read this book by just reading a story or two a day. Bradbury had previously published many of the stories to serial magazines, so they are all unique and cover a variety of topics. These seemingly unrelated stories are all ingeniously connected by a short introduction and ending detailing the narrator’s time with a mysterious man covered from head to toe in tattoos.
Plays:
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A Taste of Honey
By Shelagh Delaney
Written when Delaney was only 18, A Taste of Honey follows the life of a young girl in 1950’s England as she deals with her self-absorbed mother and attempts to reconcile the discontent she feels with her life by starting a relationship with a black sailor. This play is full of witty dialogue, and really speaks to the struggle of feeling stuck in your current circumstances with no real way of how to get out. If you have trouble finding a hard copy of this, you can find the PDF of this play online, and once you’re done reading it be sure to check out the 1961 movie of the same name starring Rita Tushingham, and the song This Night Has Opened My Eyes by The Smiths, which was directly inspired by the play!
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The Importance of Being Earnest
By Oscar Wilde
Speaking of witty dialogue, no one writes it better than Oscar Wilde! If you’ve ever read The Picture of Dorian Gray, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Importance of Being Earnest is a comedy revolving around main character Jack Worthing’s use of the pseudonym “Ernest” and his friend Algernon Moncrieff’s subsequent adoption of this method. Fine in and of itself, but things get messy when Worthing and Moncrieff’s paths cross again with Moncrieff also using the name “Ernest”… and this time the women of their lives become involved! The initial deception leads to absurd levels of miscommunication between the various characters, coming to a head towards the end of the play where it leads to old family tragedies coming to life that completely change how the characters view each other. This is a great read if you’re a fan of soap operas or Korean dramas!
Nonfiction:
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Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food
By Fred Opie
Although not a requirement, a knowledge of Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God is helpful while reading this book to understand some of the references. A combination of recipes, biographical information about Hurston, and historical information about black culture and life in rural Florida, Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food is a seamless integration of so many topics! A great read for anyone who loves food, cooking, and/or history, the authentic recipes are brought to life by the background given on how people prepared the dishes and the roles they played in the daily lives of various groups of people.
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Essays of E.B. White
By E.B. White
E.B. White is so much more than the children’s author who wrote Charlotte’s Web, or my personal favorite — The Trumpet of the Swan. Don’t be deterred by the word “essay” in the title, this book is far from a stuffy collection of scholarly rhetoric. White largely writes about his own life and things going on at the time, from the trip he took to Alaska with no real plan on how to get back, to the racism occurring in Florida as compared to the orange industry, to his beloved dachshund who ran around their farm like he owned it. More serious topics are covered as well, from the World’s Fair to the nuclear arms race that was occurring during the Cold War. I recommend reading one essay as a way to take a break in the midst of each busy day, I personally read it while taking lunch breaks!
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Philosophy is for Everyman: A Short Course in Philosophical Thinking
By Karl Jaspers
Philosophy is for Everyman was based on a set of television lectures, and has a very conversational tone as a result. The book is organized into very distinct sections that make it very easy to follow along with the ideas being discussed. To most people, the word “philosophy” brings to mind ancient Greece and headaches, but trust me when I say it’s worth getting into. Philosophy as a subject is the investigation of the world we have created and the way we perceive it, and therefore applies to everyone, whether your interests are in art, math, science, or really anything at all! This book takes very general philosophical concepts (which are things you’ll already be familiar with) and explores their meanings. The book also gives great insights into things that we can apply to our daily lives, such as the idea that: “We become ourselves in those we love. We lose ourselves in those to whom we feel superior.”
Happy reading!
Olivia