@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 300;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-SemiboldItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 600;
font-style: italic;
}Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
“`css
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Headline Full’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: ‘Guardian Titlepiece’;
src: url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2’) format(‘woff2’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff’) format(‘woff’),
url(‘https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf’) format(‘truetype’);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive {
margin-left: 160px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive {
margin-left: 240px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom {
max-width: 620px;
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom {
max-width: 100%;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
margin-left: 0;
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
max-width: 620px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
max-width: 860px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
max-width: 1100px;
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
width: calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));
position: relative;
left: 50%;
right: 50%;
margin-left: calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px)) !important;
margin-right: calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px)) !important;
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
transform: translate(-20px);
width: calc(100% + 60px);
}
}
@media (max-width: 71.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
transform: translate(0);
width: auto;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
max-width: 1260px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive p,
.content__main-column–interactive ul {
max-width: 620px;
}
.content__main-column–interactive:before {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
height: calc(100% + 15px);
min-height: 100px;
content: “”;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
/ Additional styles can go here /
}
“`Here’s the rewritten CSS in fluent, natural English:
The main content column for interactive pages has a left border that is 1 pixel solid light gray. On screens wider than 81.25em, this border shifts slightly to the left. Inside this column, elements like atoms have no top or bottom margin but have 12 pixels of padding on each side. When a paragraph is followed by an atom, the padding is removed and replaced with 12 pixels of margin on both sides. Inline elements are limited to a maximum width of 620 pixels, and on screens wider than 61.25em, figures with the inline role also have this width limit.
For media sections containing a loop figure, the caption is given a higher stacking order. The loop button is 32 pixels wide, aligned to the bottom right, with some bottom margin. The caption button is also given a high stacking order. On screens wider than 46.25em, cinemagraph figures have no maximum height restriction.
In the body section, self-hosted videos are displayed as block elements with a maximum width of 620 pixels and 12 pixels of margin on top and bottom. The loop figure and its video inside take full width, auto height, and are centered. If the loop figure has the immersive video class, it has no maximum width and 12 pixels of vertical margin. On screens wider than 71.25em, these immersive videos expand to 1140 pixels wide with a negative left margin, and their captions have a left margin. On screens wider than 81.25em, they expand further to 1300 pixels wide with a larger negative left margin.
The root variables define colors for dateline, header border, caption text, caption background, and feature. The feature color is red. The new pillar color defaults to the primary pillar or feature. Subheading, pullquote text, and pullquote icon use the secondary pillar color, while blockquote text uses the article text color. Blockquotes also have a fill color from the secondary pillar. In dark mode, these colors switch to dark mode pillar colors.
Interactive main column elements and atom elements have no padding. The first atom in an article body, interactive content, comment body, or feature body, when followed by a paragraph or sign-in gate, has no special styling. Similarly, horizontal rules that are not the last one, when followed by a paragraph, also have no special styling.Here’s the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:
The first paragraph after an element atom, sign-in gate, or horizontal rule (except the last one) gets a 14-pixel top padding. The first letter of that paragraph is styled as a large, bold, uppercase drop cap. It uses the Guardian Headline font family, is 111 pixels tall, has a line height of 92 pixels, floats to the left, and has an 8-pixel right margin. Its color comes from a custom property called `–drop-cap` (or `–new-pillar-colour` if that’s not set).
Paragraphs that come right after a horizontal rule have no top padding.
Pull quotes are limited to a maximum width of 620 pixels.
For showcase images, the caption is normally positioned statically and takes up the full width, up to 620 pixels. On wider screens (71.25em and above), the caption becomes absolutely positioned and is limited to 140 pixels wide. On even wider screens (81.25em and above), the caption can be up to 220 pixels wide.
Immersive elements take up the full viewport width, minus the scrollbar width. On smaller screens (up to 71.24em), they are capped at 978 pixels wide, and their captions have 10 pixels of padding on each side. On screens between 30em and 71.24em, that padding increases to 20 pixels.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
The immersive element has a maximum width of 738px. On smaller screens (under 46.24em), the immersive element should have a left margin of -10px and no right margin. On screens between 30em and 46.24em, the left margin increases to -20px, and the caption gets 20px of padding on each side.
For larger screens (71.25em and above), showcase images in the body section should have a left margin of -160px. On very large screens (81.25em and above), that margin increases to -240px.
The furniture wrapper is positioned relatively. On screens 61.25em and wider, it becomes a grid with 20px gaps between columns and no row gaps. The grid has 10 columns: the first five are for the title, headline, meta, and standfirst, and the last five are for the portrait. The rows are arranged so the title takes up 0.25fr, the headline 1fr, the standfirst 0.75fr, and the meta auto-fills the remaining space.
In this layout, the headline section gets a top border. The meta section has some top padding and no right margin. The standfirst text has a bottom margin of 4px, and its list items are 20px in size. Links in the standfirst are underlined with a 6px offset, and the underline color changes on hover.
The first paragraph in the standfirst has a top border, but on screens 71.25em and wider, that border is removed.
Figures in the furniture wrapper have no margin on the top, bottom, or right, and a -10px left margin. Inline figures have a maximum width of 630px.
On screens 71.25em and wider, the grid changes to have 14 columns: two for the title and headline, five for the standfirst, and seven for the portrait. The rows are set to 80px for the title, auto for the headline, and auto for the standfirst and meta. The meta section gets a 540px-wide top border. The standfirst paragraphs have no top border, and the standfirst section itself has no top border either.The `e=standfirst]:before` rule adds a 1px-wide vertical line using the header border color. It’s positioned at the top left, with a height of 100%.
For screens wider than 81.25em, the `.furniture-wrapper` uses a grid layout with specific column and row definitions. The `#meta:before` and `[data-gu-name=meta]:before` elements are 620px wide. The `.standfirst:before`, `#standfirst:before`, and `[data-gu-name=standfirst]:before` elements are shifted slightly to the left.
Inside the article header, the labels in `.content__labels > div` for both `.article-header` and `[data-gu-name=title]` have 2px of padding at the top.
The headline (`#headline h1`, `[data-gu-name=headline] h1`, `.headline h1`) is bold (font-weight 600), has a max width of 620px, and a font size of 32px. On screens wider than 71.25em, the max width shrinks to 540px and the font size increases to 50px.
For screens wider than 46.25em, `.keyline-4` and `[data-gu-name=lines]` have no right margin. On screens wider than 61.25em, they are hidden. Their SVG elements use the header border color for strokes.
On screens wider than 46.25em, `#meta` and `[data-gu-name=meta]` also have no right margin. The social and comment sections inside them use the header border color for their borders.
Inside `#meta` and `[data-gu-name=meta]`, the `gu-island` elements within `.content__meta-container_dcr > div` are hidden.
The standfirst sections (`.standfirst`, `#standfirst`, `[data-gu-name=standfirst]`) are positioned with a left margin of -10px, left padding of 10px, and relative positioning. On screens wider than 46.25em, they get 2px of top padding. Paragraphs inside them have normal weight (400), a font size of 20px, and 14px of bottom padding.
The main media (`#main-media`, `[data-gu-name=media]`) is positioned relatively, with no top margin and a 2px bottom margin. It occupies the portrait grid area. Its inner divs are full width with no inline margins. On screens wider than 61.25em, the bottom margin is removed. On screens narrower than 46.24em, the media takes up the full viewport width (minus scrollbar width) and has a left margin of -10px. If the screen is at least 30em wide, the left margin becomes -20px.
The figure caption is positioned at the bottom, with 4px top padding, 10px left and right padding, and 12px bottom padding. It uses the caption background and text colors, spans the full width, has no max width, and a minimum height of 46px. The caption’s `span` elements use the header border color, and any SVG inside them uses the same fill color. The first `span` is hidden, while the second is shown with a max width of 90%. On screens at least 30em wide, the caption padding changes to 4px top, 20px sides, and 12px bottom. If the caption has the `hidden` class, it becomes invisible.
The caption button (`#caption-button`) is displayed as a block element, positioned at the bottom right (10px from bottom, 8px from right), with a z-index of 30. It uses the caption background color, has no border, and is fully rounded.Here is the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:
The padding is set to 6px on the top and bottom, and 5px on the left and right. In the furniture wrapper, the caption button’s SVG is scaled down to 85% of its original size. On screens wider than 30em, the caption button is positioned 10px from the right. On screens wider than 71.25em, the main interactive column’s top margin is adjusted to -12px, and its height is increased by 24px. The main interactive column’s h2 headings have a maximum width of 620px.
For devices running iOS or Android, the following color variables are defined: the dark background is #1a1a1a, the feature color is #c70000, the dark mode feature color is #ff5943, and the new pillar color is set to the primary pillar (or the feature color if no primary pillar is defined). In dark mode on these devices, the new pillar color switches to the dark mode pillar (or the dark mode feature color if no dark mode pillar is defined).
On iOS and Android devices, the first letter of the first paragraph after the first element atom in feature, standard, and comment article containers is colored using the secondary pillar (or black if no secondary pillar is defined). Also on these devices, the article header in feature, standard, and comment containers has a height of 0. The furniture wrapper in these containers has padding of 4px on top and bottom, and 10px on the left and right, with no padding on the top. The content labels inside the furniture wrapper are bold, use the Guardian Headline font family, are colored with the new pillar color, and are written in title case.Here’s the rewritten CSS in fluent, natural English:
For the headline inside the furniture wrapper on Android devices, the font size is 32 pixels, bold, with 12 pixels of padding at the bottom, and the color is set to a dark shade (#121212).
On both iOS and Android, when an image appears inside the furniture wrapper of any article container (feature, standard, or comment), it is positioned relatively. It has a 14-pixel top margin and no left margin, but a negative 10-pixel left offset. Its width takes up the full viewport width minus the scrollbar width, and its height adjusts automatically.
For the image itself, its inner container, the image element, and any links inside it all have a transparent background. They also take up the full viewport width minus the scrollbar, and their height is set to auto (and marked as important).
The standfirst section (the introductory text) on both iOS and Android has 4 pixels of padding at the top and 24 pixels at the bottom, with a negative 10-pixel right margin.
Inside the standfirst, any paragraph text uses the font family: Guardian Headline, Guardian Egyptian Web, Guardian Headline Full, Georgia, or a generic serif font.
Links inside the standfirst (whether in a list item or not) also follow the same styling.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
On Android devices, links inside the standfirst section of feature, standard, and comment articles use the pillar color, have no background image, are underlined with a 6px offset, and use a light gray underline color instead of a bottom border.
On both iOS and Android, when you hover over those same links, the underline color changes to the pillar color.
On both platforms, the meta section in these article containers has no margin.
Also on both platforms, the byline text, author names, author links, and byline spans in the meta section all use the pillar color.For iOS and Android, the `.meta__misc` section inside `.furniture-wrapper` within article containers (feature, standard, and comment) has no padding.
On both iOS and Android, the SVG icons in the `.meta__misc` section of these article containers use a stroke color defined by `–new-pillar-colour`.
For iOS and Android, the caption button (`#caption-button`) inside `.element–showcase` within the `.furniture-wrapper` of all article containers is displayed as a flex container. It has 5px padding, centered content both horizontally and vertically, and is 28px wide and 28px tall, positioned 14px from the right.
On both iOS and Android, the article body (`.article__body`) in feature, standard, and comment article containers has 12px padding on the left and right, with no top or bottom padding.
For iOS and Android, image figures (`.element-image`) inside the article body that are not thumbnails or immersive have no margin. Their width is calculated as the full viewport width minus 24px and the scrollbar width (if any), and their height is automatic. The captions for these images have no padding.
On both iOS and Android, immersive image figures (`.element-image.element-immersive`) inside the article body have a width equal to the full viewport width minus the scrollbar width (if any).
For iOS, blockquotes with the class `quoted` inside the prose section of the article body have a specific style applied before their content.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
For quoted text in articles, the color is set by the pillar color variable. Links within article text are styled with an underline, using the primary pillar color and a 6px offset. The underline color matches the header border. When you hover over these links, the underline changes to the new pillar color.
In dark mode, the furniture wrapper background becomes dark gray (#1a1a1a). The content labels inside the wrapper use the new pillar color. The main headline doesn’t have a background and uses the header border color instead. The standfirst text also takes on the header border color. Links in the standfirst and author names in the byline follow the same styling.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
On both Android and iOS, the byline author links in the meta section of feature, standard, and comment articles use the new pillar color. Similarly, the SVG icons in the meta misc section of these articles are outlined in the same new pillar color.
For showcase image captions in feature, standard, and comment articles on both platforms, the text color is set to the dateline variable.
Blockquotes within the article body on both Android and iOS use the new pillar color for their text.
Finally, the main content areas of feature, standard, and comment articles—including the article body, interactive content, feature body, comment body, and any element with the data attribute “body”—have a dark background color on both platforms.Here is the rewritten text in fluent, natural English:
On iOS devices, when viewing feature articles, the first letter of a paragraph that comes right after an element atom (or after a sign-in gate followed by an element atom) should be styled in a special way. This applies to several sections within the article, including the main body, interactive content areas, feature body, comment body, and any section marked with `data-gu-name=”body”`.
The same styling also applies to standard articles and comment articles on iOS, in all the same sections: the main article body, interactive content areas, feature body, comment body, and `data-gu-name=”body”` sections.
On Android devices, this styling is applied to the feature article container as well.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
On Android devices, when viewing feature, standard, or comment articles, the first letter of the first paragraph after an element atom should be styled in a special way. This applies whether the paragraph comes right after the element atom, or after a sign-in gate that follows the element atom. The same rule applies across different sections of the article, including the article body, interactive content, feature body, the body data section, and the comment body.Here’s the rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
The first letter of certain paragraphs has a specific color style, and on Android devices, some elements have adjusted padding and margins. For example, in comment sections, the standfirst (introductory text) has extra space at the top. Headings in articles are sized at 24px, and caption buttons have different padding depending on whether you’re using iOS or Android.
In dark mode, the color scheme changes automatically unless you’ve set it to light mode. This affects text colors, link styles, and other visual elements. Both iOS and Android versions use a white background by default, and certain labels and headlines are bolded for emphasis.
Article body headings have a lighter font weight, but if they contain strong text, they become bold. The content meta container also displays certain elements as blocks.
—
Reading an entire book in one sitting is usually something you do with a short story—a form that relies on your full, uninterrupted attention. But there’s something special about the intensity of starting and finishing a whole book in a single day. Some of my most memorable reading experiences have been like that.
As a judge for last year’s Booker Prize, I had to read 153 books in just over six months. My goal was to treat every novel as if it could be read in a day. While I loved the experience, it wasn’t always the most satisfying way to read.
Aside from judging the Booker, everyone feels short on time these days. The Booker prizes recently shared research, done with the Reading Agency, that found 35% of readers struggle to finish books. The publisher Vintage describes its new collection of “short masterpieces”—by writers like Nella Larsen, Ursula K. Le Guin, Toni Morrison, and Fyodor Dostoevsky—as books that fit “contemporary reading lives.” And it’s true: if you pick a book of the right length and take the right precautions (like leaving your phone in another room and not answering the door), reading a book in a day becomes totally possible—especially with summer holidays coming up.
But what should you choose? That’s where this list comes in. It’s a personal selection, not a complete one. I’ve left out some great but maybe overfamiliar options, like Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby, and Ethan Frome. But all these books, whether familiar or not, are worth a day of your time.
Assembly by Natasha Brown
At just a hundred pages long and written in short vignettes with plenty of white space on the page, there’s something brilliant about it.The book is startlingly aggressive about the economy of Assembly. Brown’s debut is narrated by a young Black woman working in finance—Brown’s own career before becoming a novelist. She has success, money, and a loving, liberal boyfriend from a wealthy family. She seems to have it all. But rising from the depths of the book is a desperate rage: “I am what we’ve always been to the empire: pure, fucking profit.”
Kick the Latch
Kathryn Scanlan
Sonia is a horse trainer who has spent decades working at racetracks across America. In a note at the end of Kick the Latch, Scanlan thanks the mysterious Sonia “for the conversations,” and this book is packed with rich, unusual details from a true insider. Priests bless horses’ legs; jockeys throw up to make weight; vets give B12 shots not just to the animals but to the riders, too. In tight, controlled prose, Scanlan pulls us into the secrets of a closed world.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by HT Willetts
Many novels take place in a single day—Ulysses, Mrs Dalloway, Under the Volcano—but very few can also be read in that same span of time. Solzhenitsyn’s novel starts with the prison camp wake-up call of a hammer hitting a rail and ends 150 pages later with its main character falling asleep. In between, we are thrown into the brutal daily struggle for survival that is life—or more often death—in the Soviet gulag.
By Night in Chile
Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews
The priest, poet, and literary critic Sebastián Urrutia Lacroix, delirious on his deathbed, launches into a dizzying monologue that covers falconry, war, Nobel Prize-winning writers, and Catholic guilt. Bolaño’s novella is a high-wire act, a marvel of rhythm and pacing. Its boldest invention—a torture chamber hidden behind a literary salon—blends Bolaño’s deep interest in literature, fascism, and violence so completely that it almost seems like self-parody. Of course, it turns out to be based on real life.
Giovanni’s Room
James Baldwin
David, the main character of Baldwin’s second novel, is a white gay American reflecting on his love affair in Paris with a bartender named Giovanni. Much has been said about the sexual and racial politics, but on a first read, what grabs you is the intensity of the description. When David walks toward Giovanni, the new employee at the gay bar who is causing a stir, he feels as if he’s “moving into the field of a magnet” or “approaching a small circle of heat.” And we feel it too.
Train Dreams
Denis Johnson
Johnson’s haunting, sometimes almost unbearably beautiful novella about the life of a railroad worker and logger has taken a long road to fame. First published in the Paris Review in 2002, it didn’t come out as a book until 2011. Now, with the recent release of Clint Bentley’s Oscar-nominated film adaptation, it has become Johnson’s best-known work. For me, though, the film is weak compared to the novella, whose spare majesty is seasoned with the startling, surreal moments of everyday life.
Memorial
Alice Oswald
Being in the audience to hear Oswald recite Memorial—without looking at the text—is one of the greatest live literary experiences of my life. An “oral cemetery” that names more than 200 of the dead from Homer’s Iliad, her poem uses repeating, chant-like stanzas and striking similes, mostly from nature, to build a tomb out of language. Constantly surprising and completely absorbing, the poem demands to be read like a song is listened to—in one focused sitting.
A Case of Hysteria (Dora)
Sigmund Freud, translated by Anthea Bell
One of only a few case histories Freud wrote about his own patients, A Case of Hysteria has been called “a classical Victorian domestic drama.” Dora, whose r…Her real name was Ida Bauer, and she claimed to have resisted sexual advances from her father’s friend. Whatever you think of Freud’s methods—here he often comes across more as an interrogator than a doctor—his storytelling skill in revealing details of the case, especially the links between Dora’s symptoms and her dreams, is clear.
The Comfort of Strangers
Ian McEwan
There’s a strong Freudian feel to McEwan’s most unsettling novel. “Colin and Mary had never left the hotel so late,” he writes in the opening pages of this sharply nasty book, “and Mary was to attribute much of what followed to this fact.” So begins a short, brutal slide into manipulation and violence, as these two holidaymakers fall under the influence of another couple. The book becomes even more menacing by mixing its sense of threat with a dreamy slowness and beauty.
The Cost of Living
Deborah Levy
The second volume of Levy’s “living autobiography,” The Cost of Living describes the end of a long marriage and the death of the author’s mother. Ending a marriage means scaling back, which is hard to do with two children who need time and space. Writing demands the same, and in part this is a book about a writer being brave enough to call herself one. And the scene with the e-bike and the flattened chicken is unforgettable.
When We Cease to Understand the World
Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West
Fictional essays? Essay-like fictions? A nonfiction novel? How best to classify Labatut’s gripping exploration of math and science concepts and the people behind them—from the rivalrous Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger to the troubled Alan Turing and reclusive genius Alexander Grothendieck? Maybe it’s better to forget about labels and just dive into a book that captures the strangeness and importance of the last two centuries’ major scientific breakthroughs, and the toll they took on sanity.
Wittgenstein’s Nephew
Thomas Bernhard, translated by David McLintock
This semi-autobiographical account of Thomas Bernhard’s friendship with Paul Wittgenstein (actually Ludwig’s first cousin once removed, but try making that work as a title) shows the famously sharp-tongued Austrian writer at his most personal. The book offers a moving and sometimes painfully revealing look at male friendship: “the most valuable relationship I have ever had with another man, the only one I have been able to endure for more than the briefest period.”
The Spare Room
Helen Garner
When a friend gave me a copy of Garner’s autobiographical novel as a birthday present, I thought of cancer as something that happened to other people. By the time I finished it, I had been through it twice myself. The Spare Room mostly follows Helen’s friend Nicola, who comes to Melbourne seeking an alternative therapy cure for her end-stage cancer. Garner’s account of this time—of the memorable start of their friendship drinking vodka on a jetty at night, and of “the remains of her care” for Nicola—uses stark simplicity to reveal the desperate complexity of dying and of witnessing death.
Fever Dream
Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell
A panic attack disguised as a novel, Fever Dream takes the form of a conversation between Amanda, lying in a hospital bed having lost her sight, and her friend Carla’s unusually mature young son, David—who Carla, as she once told Amanda, believes has been replaced by someone or something else. Meanwhile, where is Amanda’s daughter? While every book on this list benefits from being read in one sitting, Fever Dream is almost impossible to put down before the last page.
The Driver’s Seat
Muriel Spark
Lise, the main character in Spark’s still-shocking 1970 novel—her favorite of her own works—is “neither good-looking nor bad-looking. Her nose is short and wider than…”It will look like a likeness built partly from an identikit method and partly from actual photographs, soon to be published in newspapers in four languages. The book is a masterclass in telling readers they’re heading somewhere awful, while making them hope things will turn out okay, even though they know they won’t.
The Vegetarian
Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith
Long before she won the Nobel Prize, Han made her English-language debut with this, her fifth novel. Questions pile up as you read. Why is Yeong-hye’s husband so angry when she stops eating meat? What’s with her brother-in-law’s obsession with plants? And is it connected to her later desire to turn into a tree? Compelling either because of or despite its mystery, Han’s novel—fittingly, given its constant return to images of invaded bodies—sinks its roots deep into readers’ minds.
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Carlo Rovelli, translated by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre
There’s something breathtakingly simple about how Carlo Rovelli, a physicist who originally wrote these short essays for an Italian newspaper, communicates incredibly complex ideas. We don’t walk away fully understanding general relativity, quantum gravity, or whether the Standard Model is elegant or not, but it helps us grasp the awesome scope of the concepts it so gracefully outlines. And, unlike Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, at 79 pages, you’ll actually finish it.
Lolly Willowes
Sylvia Townsend Warner
One of the true originals of 20th-century English literature, Townsend Warner’s writing career began with this deeply strange novel 100 years ago. It starts conventionally enough, with young, gentle Lolly leaving London for the countryside. Then it gleefully smashes together genres, some of which weren’t even defined in 1926. Nature writing, feminism (“women know they are dynamite,” Lolly declares), folk horror, and more are mixed together, with Satan appearing not just as an idea, but as a flesh-and-blood gamekeeper in the Chilterns.
Small Things Like These
Claire Keegan
Just before Christmas 1985, coalman Bill Furlong makes a shocking discovery in the “powerful-looking” convent that looms over his small Irish town. The church’s control, and Furlong’s ability to defy it, is central to this spellbinding book. There’s a simple reading that sees it as a fable about a good man. But it’s more complicated than that, and the question of what might happen in the days after Furlong’s decisive, perhaps reckless, action lingers.
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
Max Porter
Before Max Porter’s unique debut—part poem, novel, essay, play—became an unexpected hit, publishers had grown wary of short books. Without its example, you can easily imagine Samantha Harvey being told to go away and add 20,000 words to Orbital, her 140-page Booker Prize winner. But Porter’s vivid, crackling story, where a human-sized crow steps out of Ted Hughes’s poetry and into the lives of a grieving family, disproves the idea that short must mean lightweight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about reading books you can finish in a day written in a natural tone with clear answers
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What exactly is a book you can finish in a day
Its a short bookusually a novella a short story collection or a very concise nonfiction bookthat you can realistically read from cover to cover in a single sitting or in one day of casual reading
2 Why would I want to read a book in one day
It gives you a huge sense of accomplishment helps you break a reading slump and is perfect for busy schedules You get the full story or lesson without the commitment of a long book
3 Are these books just for people who dont like reading
Not at all Many experienced readers love them as a palate cleanser between longer denser novels Theyre also great for discovering new authors without a huge time investment
4 Can you give me a few examples of books you can finish in a day
Sure The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway Animal Farm by Orwell The Giver by Lois Lowry We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho are all popular choices
5 Do I have to read it in one sitting
No In a day just means you can easily finish it within 24 hours even if you read in short burstslike during your commute lunch break or before bed
6 Are these books only fiction
No There are many great short nonfiction books like The Art of War by Sun Tzu Mans Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl or short essay collections
7 How do I find books that are short enough
Check the page count or look for labels like novella short story collection or essay Online lists and Goodreads shelves for quick reads are also very helpful
Advanced Practical Questions
8 Is it possible to get a deep meaningful experience from a book you finish in a day
Absolutely A short book can be incredibly powerful Authors often pack immense meaning
