Probably A Christmas Carol, but there's also Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, Bartleby, A Boy and His Dog, Kuttner and Moore's Vintage Season, Coraline, the four Sherlock Holmes novels...
Wesley: I stabbed you. I should apologize for that. But I'm honestly not sure how. I think it'll just be awkward. Gunn: Good call. Wesley: Okay.
'Time Bomb'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Ginger - Feb 03, 2011 11:25:34 am PST #13833 of 28282
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
Fred Pete - Feb 03, 2011 11:35:51 am PST #13834 of 28282
Ann, that's a ferret.
Of what hasn't already been mentioned (Vintage Season is without peer, as is just about anything by Kuttner and/or Moore):
Jane Austen's Lady Susan is a fine short epistolary novel.
James Clavell's King Rat is probably too long to really qualify, but it's a brilliant depiction of life in a WWII Japanese POW camp.
Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase looks longer than it reads. It's another epistolary (more or less) novel of a young teacher's first semester out of college, teaching in a NYC public school.
flea - Feb 03, 2011 11:59:58 am PST #13835 of 28282
information libertarian
Is a short novel the same as a novella? I love Colette's Gigi (never seen the film.)
Amy - Feb 03, 2011 12:02:39 pm PST #13836 of 28282
Because books.
Favorite short novels would be:
Bonjour Tristesse, Francoise Sagan
The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
Polter-Cow - Feb 03, 2011 12:04:42 pm PST #13837 of 28282
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Of the top of my head, Shopgirl by Steve Martin and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore come to mind.
Strega - Feb 03, 2011 1:01:51 pm PST #13838 of 28282
Maybe Lansdale's Mad Dog Summer.
From looking at lists of novellas, I think the format doesn't work for me very well -- there are certainly some I like, but I prize things I can reread, and with novella length fiction I'm probably going to remember most of the details, unlike with a novel, but it'll still take a while to get through, unlike a short story. So even if I'm like, "Oh yes, that was good," I'm rarely in the mood for them.
sj - Feb 03, 2011 1:03:51 pm PST #13839 of 28282
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."
I liked The Body Artist and it worked well in the short format.
dcp - Feb 03, 2011 3:30:26 pm PST #13840 of 28282
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
So what do you like in the short form?
Tea With the Black Dragon -- R. A. MacAvoy
Connie Neil - Feb 03, 2011 5:26:45 pm PST #13841 of 28282
brillig
Tea With the Black Dragon
Lovely book, though I wouldn't call it a novella.
dcp - Feb 03, 2011 5:47:57 pm PST #13842 of 28282
The more I learn, the more I realize how little I know.
Too long?