5 Short Literary Works You Can Read in a Single Day

Sometimes there's no desire to spend weeks with lengthy novels. Here are five short literary works that can be read in a single day, yet provide food for thought for much longer.

As summer arrives, many readers have noted that a beach read doesn't need to be massive in scope-sometimes a shorter work has even greater impact. If you're looking to bring along a book that can be finished during one day at the beach, in a doctor's waiting room, or over long summer days, there are several excellent short works to choose from.

Here are five short literary books, all by talented female authors, that fit into a single day but set your thoughts in motion for ages to come. These works prove that brevity doesn't mean superficiality. On the contrary, tight and thoughtfully crafted prose often leaves a deeper mark than a multi-hundred-page novel.