10 Books You Can Read in One Sitting

In There Are Things I Know, the narrator Pepper is an eight year old boy who struggles with words, but finds it easier to turn them into numbers in order to remember them. He is good at remembering numbers. He can remember the number his momma always wrote on his arm when they went out incase he got lost. One day, when a man called Uncle Dan takes Pepper from That Amazing Pizza Place and tells Pepper his momma has died, Pepper knows he must never forget the number written on his arm, because he knows that Uncle Dan is lying, and that he must find his momma. This is a heart-warming read that will remind you that there’s bad in the world, but there’s a whole lot of good too. Read my full spoiler-free review here.

I’ve been trying to collect both the Penguin Modern books and the Penguin Little Black Classics, both of which I adore, simply because you can dip in and out of the worlds of so many writers, and find new ones to love from the snippets in these books. Perfect to read if you want a break from a longer book, or just a short immersion at the end of the day in bed. My personal favourites include Shirley Jackson’s The Missing Girl, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, and Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail.

The End We Start From is a piece of impactful dystopian fiction which sees a family thrown into the unknown when London, and the surrounding areas are flooded and they must flee. Having just given birth to her first child, the narrator must work out how to keep them all safe while giving the baby the nourishment she needs, and more importantly, trying to stay together. But in this bleak and unrecognisable future, when separated from those you love, how on earth are you supposed to survive? The narrative is a cross between poetry and prose so you’ll speed through this one! Read the full review here.

I discovered this book while at university as it was on my second year curriculum, and I fell in love with it. It’s a novella which follows the story of Rasselas, a Prince who lives in the Happy Valley, but for reasons unbeknownst to him, he is anything but. This is a story way ahead of it’s time about how we can be given everything we want to be happy, and somehow, still not be so. Touching on mental health themes, this is a refreshing look at the human condition, and one that will stay with you for a long time.

I Was Born For This follows both band member Jimmy and fangirl Angel whose lives are about to intertwine. Touching on important themes such as identity, sexuality, mental health, and relationships, this book is an interesting and compelling read. Jumping between narratives makes it fast-paced, but your desire to learn more about the characters of this book will also not allow you to put it down.