Recommend great novellas here

I think any attempt to get a solid consensus definition would be doomed to failure. I'd only tend to use the word to describe something between about 50 and 100 pages, a lot of the books listed here are over or under that mark. I think the bottom line is that some works end up having novella stick as a tag whereas others almost always get called novels.

well, that wikipedia pages says 20,000-40,000 words. Don't know how long that generally is in pages though. Though, yeah, 50-100 pages seems about right, maybe up to 110 or 120.

Would also recommend "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroine's' by John Crowley, that shit is devastating.

I'm struggling to remember if any of the internal stories in Don Quixote or The Manuscript found in Saragossa (need to re-read this, I can barely remember it) are long enough to be novellas, or if there are any great novellas wrapped up in larger novels.

A lot of the short novels I have are double-spaced, which must be cheating.

lol, you might as well read long books since you've got enough to get through with this lot

Steven Millhauser has some good Novella's too.

I suppose Camus' The Fall

Just reread this. Excellent stuff.

For all it's simplicity of language I can't think of a book that's more rewarding but elusive in its ideas than The Fall.

good thread. i never seem to read novellas even though i dread long books.

My present display name is a quote...

(From La Chute)

Hahaha so it is and I hadn't noticed.

The Iron Man - Ted Hughes (technically a kids' book but I think it qualifies as a novella too).
At the Bay - Katherine Mansfield

Balzac's Colonel Chabert

Self-plug here: I used to write about novellas for Bookslut ( http://www.bookslut.com/Small%20but%20Perfectly%20Formed.php ) until I realised that the editor didn't give a fuck about her contributors.

I'm struggling to remember if any of the internal stories in Don Quixote or The Manuscript found in Saragossa (need to re-read this, I can barely remember it) are long enough to be novellas

'La novela del curioso impertinente', with Anselmo & Lotario, goes on for nearly fifty pages in my edition of DQ.

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~ladamic/pics/sommer.jpg

This is also one of my favorites. Hard to find, so pick up a copy if you ever come across one.

oh i read "the pigeon" (and "perfume" obv. which isn't a novella) and it is great

Pnin by Nabokov

v. amusing

i love pnin but it's a novel

he has some good novellas though - the eye, transparent things

what i'd like to find is a warm novelette.

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/6628/208blognormal.jpg

Some of these are definitely novels.

I don't normally dig list threads, but this one I like.

salinger - raise high the roofbeams, carpenters is my favorite thing that he did

miss lonelyhearts nathanael west

― kamerad, Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

YESSSSSSSSSS.

One of my all-time favorite reads.

Conrad has a bunch of novellas that are less o_O than Heart of Darkness, like The Secret Sharer and Youth.

Also, Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity.

Most of Jim Thompson's novels are short enough to be considered novellas, if you're going by word count.

Balzac's Colonel Chabert

― Randy will be autographing copies of his fascinating autobiography (dyao), Wednesday, September 16, 2009 8:30 PM (1 month ago)

^^^

Ethan Canin - Batorsag and Szerelem is my absolute favourite.

also:

Melville's "Bartelby the Scrivener"
Dostoyevski's "Notes from Underground"
Salinger's "Zooey"