Long Books or Short Books?

​By Margaret Green, originally published in the March 2025 issue of the 1666 Coffman Newsletter

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.” C. S. Lewis

What about you? I have to say I’ve always come down on the long book side. I avoid short stories and essays. Nothing makes me happier than starting a book with hundreds of pages, knowing that I have hours of good reading ahead. But in recent years I’ve been seeing the charms of short volumes, and enjoying the shorter time commitment they require.

Here are some recent short additions to the Library.

Orbital: A Novel by Samantha Harvey 207 pages, Booker Prize Winner 2024

A “one day” lyrical meditation on our planet, from the viewpoint of six astronauts on the International Space Station as they rotate the earth sixteen times in twenty-four hours. On the Recent and Relevant shelf, call number Fiction (Harv)

The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer 128 pages, Top Amazon book in Biology, Botany and Nature Writing, NY Times Best Seller

A followup to Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, she uses a close look at the ecology of the serviceberry to develop a vision for how to use the natural world to orient ourselves around gratitude and community. On the Recent and Relevant shelf, call number Nature/Environment (Kimm)

Winter's Song: A Hymn to the North by T. D. Mischke 186 pages

These essays by a Saint Paul author and radio host celebrate the intense relationship that Americans living in the northern Midwest have with winter. It uses humor and engaging storytelling to highlight this wonderful season and its impact. As a Minnesota transplant, I laughed out loud at some of the stories, remembering cold wet experiences with Carolina snowstorms. (Including one memorable December night-time trip into the woods with my brother to cut down a cedar Christmas tree, my loafers covered with plastic bags held on by rubber bands. Why? Because what Carolina girl actually owns snow boots?) On the Recent and Relevant shelf, call number Minnesota/Midwest (Misc)

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers 147 pages, Hugo Winner 2022, one of the first books to represent the “Solarpunk Aesthetic”

A gentle heartwarming book composed of philosophical conversations between Dex, a Tea Monk, and Mosscap, a robot. Dex is on a quest to hear the sound of crickets and he is joined by Mosscap on his own quest to find out what humans need. On the Recent and Relevant shelf, call number Fiction (Cham)

And one bonus, located not at Coffman but at both Hennepin and Ramsey County Libraries (paper, audio and ebook):

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff 112 pages

A beloved classic, one of my all-time favorites, set in post-war London. A story for people who love books, told through a series of letters between a freelance writer living in New York City and a used book dealer in London. Also made into an award winning movie with Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft and Judi Dench.