Six novels you can read in a day
Reluctant to start on a big masterpiece? Try these small gems instead
FOR A SMALL format the novella carries a lot of baggage—starting with its diminutive. It has long been seen as the middle child of the literary world: it is neither the fully fledged novel, nor the fussed-over baby of the literary family, the short story. Presented with a work of between 60 and 160 pages, agents and editors typically tell an author to scale up or pare back. Melville House, an independent publisher in New York that prides itself on publishing novellas, calls them a “renegade art form”.
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