Start achieving your 2026 reading goals with these short books

Brilliant books that you can finish in one sitting. 

Think you don’t have time to read? Think again. Some of the most powerful reading experiences come in slim, perfectly formed packages, stories and ideas that linger long after the final page. Whether you’re finding your way back to books or searching for something to immerse yourself in at one sitting, these concise reads prove that it doesn’t take long to fall under a book’s spell. All you need is an afternoon, a train journey, or a quiet pause in the day and the right book in your hands.

The Midnight Train

by  Matt Haig

When your life flashes before your eyes, where would you stop? No one can change the past, but the Midnight Train can take you there. The chance to re-live the moments that meant most. To see what kind of person you really were. A magical, time-traveling love story, from the world of The Midnight Library.

Brawler

by  Lauren Groff

A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time. Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive.

Good People

by  Patmeena Sabit

Zorah Sharaf could do no wrong. Zorah Sharaf brought shame upon her family. What’s the truth? Depends on who you ask … Like a literary game of ping-pong, Good People compels the reader to reconsider what might have happened even on the previous page. Told through a kaleidoscope of perspectives, it is a riveting, provocative, and haunting story of family — sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and the communities that claim us as family in difficult times.

Shakti: The Sacred Feminine

by Siddhartha Vankar

Sati chose fire. Her body fell across the land. Was she broken, or was she reborn? Shakti: The Sacred Feminine retells the myth of Sati through the goddess’s own voice, spoken from each fragment of her body at the Shakti Peethas. Told as 51 lyrical monologues, the book reclaims the female body as sacred and sovereign, blending mythology with fierce introspection on womanhood, voice, and power. Provocative, poetic, and spiritually charged, it is a bold reimagining of the feminine divine.

Unforgettable Classic Stories: A Timeless Anthology

by Deepti Menon

A fierce, luminous reimagining of classic tales, Unforgettable Classic Stories showcases Deepti Menon’s sharp insight into human nature. Precise and evocative, the collection breathes new life into timeless stories, revealing their enduring emotional power and quiet provocations.

Demystify Generative AI for Everyday People

by Pritam Sahoo

A clear, empowering guide to the AI age, Demystify Generative AI for Everyday People turns complex technology into practical possibility. Accessible and grounded in real world use cases, it shows how everyday individuals can harness AI as a creative, productive partner, bringing clarity, confidence, and agency to a rapidly changing world.

Miscellaneous Meanderings

by Snigdha Jha

Born from grief and grace, Miscellaneous Meanderings gathers poems that move between the sour and the sweet of lived experience. Conceived on the first death anniversary of the poetess’s beloved father, a man who was not merely a provider but a wellspring of love, laughter, and harmony, the collection carries his presence through three deeply felt poems. Ranging across themes of love and loss, the anthology also celebrates mothers, husbands, only children, and the quiet emotions that bind families together, offering an intimate, resonant journey through memory, mourning, and meaning.

Thuldrun.Sunya

by Sheetal and Samiran

Ansh Chatterjee never meant to awaken something ancient. What begins as idle curiosity over conspiracy forums and late night Maggi noodles spirals into a techno-mystical chase across Mumbai, driven by clues left behind by an ancient Indian civilisation that may have mastered quantum entanglement long before Dwarka fell.

Joined by a sarcastic hacker, a fringe theorist, and a meditative dog who may or may not understand Sanskrit, Ansh is forced to confront unsettling questions about physics, consciousness, and a truth buried for three thousand years. Because whatever ended that world is stirring again. And this time, it knows his name.

Fragments of Defiance

by Shilp Smita

Fragments of Defiance brings together 69 poems that move between self-introspection, social conscience, and spiritual awakening. With quiet intensity, the collection explores the fragile balance between self-love and self-protection, compassion and survival. Each poem questions what it means to rise above personal pain without losing oneself to it. Thoughtful, reflective, and searching, this book invites readers to confront the uneasy space where ideals, identity, and inner growth collide.

The House of Dragonflies

by Smitha Menon Kizhuveetil

Once home to generations, Chittezham was more than a house, it was a keeper of secrets. In the quiet village of Viruthi in mid Kerala, The House of Dragonflies unfolds as a haunting tapestry of lives bound by a mysterious curse that has shaped destinies for decades. At its center stands Charulatha, the last surviving heir, a solitary woman unsettled by vivid dreams and an unspoken pull toward the past. Blending folklore with history, and stories within stories, the novel moves across time to explore memory, motherhood, love, and loss, and the fragile, sacred bond between human lives and the natural world that shelters them.