The Perfect Slim Reads to Pack in Your Carry On

The Lover’s Dictionary, by David Levithan
Told in a series of dictionary entries, The Lover’s Dictionary explores a relationship and the completely indescribable love it contains. Short, aching, funny, and bittersweet, this novel leaves plenty of blank space for you to fill in on your own. Especially since the entries appear in alphabetical rather than chronological order (like any good dictionary should), allowing you to piece together the plot. It’s honest and exactly as long as it needs to be, and, well, we can’t promise you won’t cry all over your seatmate.

Gourmet Rhapsody, by Muriel Barbary
Did you love The Elegance of the Hedgehog? Then you’ll love this prequel novella, which takes place in the same Parisian apartment building as Barbary’s longer novel. Food critic Pierre Athens is dying, and before he goes, he’s determined to re-experience one last perfect taste; he just has to remember what it was. His mental search takes him through his memories of people, places, and—most importantly—foods. Meanwhile, his wife, children, and pet cat surround his deathbed, waiting for his final moment. Just the right size and weight to bring along, you can’t help but enjoy this setup for the adventures of Renée and Paloma.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
If you like them short and enchantingly creepy, then this is the story for you. As the narrator returns to his childhood home, he begins to remember some long-suppressed events of the past—including his strange friendship with a girl named Lettie Hempstock, a violent battle with an evil nanny, and an impossible ocean at (you guessed it) the end of the lane. This fairy tale will sneak up on you, full of forgotten memories and gorgeous descriptions, and perfect for bringing along on a beach vacation and reading with your toes in the sand.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
Plenty of classics are long and heavy, but not Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Mary Katherine Blackwood, or Merricat, lives with her older sister Constance and her ailing uncle in an old house on a lonely manor. The villagers below have never been fond of the Blackwood family, but ever since the rest of Merricat and Constance’s family mysteriously died of arsenic poisoning years ago, they’ve stayed even more out of the way—which is just the way Merricat likes it. But when their cousin Charles comes for a visit, things start to change, and Merricat and Constance may have to deal with some long-kept secrets.

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey is the shortest of Austen’s novels—and, if you ask me, the funniest. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland has read one too many Gothic novels, so when she goes on a trip with some family friends and meets Eleanor and Henry Tilney, whose mother died under secret circumstances, her imagination gets the best of her. With 140 pages of adventures in a spooky old mansion, an angry father, thwarted marriage plans, and a heroine who’s “almost pretty,” you’ll speed through this classic read in no time.
What are your favorite slim reads to pack for a plane trip?