INTRODUCTION

The story, perhaps legend, behind Allen Lane setting up Penguin books is that looking through the offerings from a 'bookseller' at a railway station in the mid-30s, he could find nothing he wanted to read.  While this experience remains true for many of us today who do nothing about it, Sir Allen decided to produce a line of cheap, portable paperbacks with the results we all know.

This blog is not particularly about Penguin, nor is it per se about cheap books, but a bit about portability.  The team working on this blog - and we hope you'll join us - is united by the view that many books are too long, many books are far too long (Vikram Seth's, A Suitable Boy being a good example), that the massive 'holiday books' beloved of some publishers are an anathema and that any good or great author should, at least from time to time, be able to marshal his or her thoughts to produce a short novel, memoir or indeed history, of quality and sensitivity, of importance and durability, of literary merit and general appeal.

We do not attempt exactly to define a 'short book' except perhaps to say what it is not.  It is not a short story nor even, that contradiction in terms, a long short story ... but it might be a novella; it is not an essay nor is it (usually) one of a collection of tales that are commonly bound together (although it might be fair to exempt Conrad's three stories that make up 'Twixt Land and Sea in the Penguin Modern Classics edition - since these are excellent). It is not, in short (sorry), something that takes a long time to read even though once read it should stick in the mind for many a long day.

The aim of the blog is to list and comment on short books adding more as the weeks pass  Of course we aim to debate and dispute the particular qualities of each before (between ourselves) and after (across the Internet) it is posted here.  That said, there's a bigger and simpler purpose: we want to discover or recollect books that are, succinctly, short and deep and at the same time relatively easy to acquire in hard copy.

Why?  Because it'll be fun and stimulating.  We hope you agree.  Please post any suggestions for books to be included to: Theblogforshortbooks@gmail.com.