Small books get read. A 90-page paperback handed over on Christmas morning is often finished by the 27th, which can't be said for the 600-page biography next to it.
Everything in the first table is around 130 pages or under in a standard paperback. Page counts shift by edition, so treat them as rough.
| For | The book | Pages (approx.) | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anyone, in December | A Christmas Carol · Charles Dickens (1843) | ~90 | Everybody knows the plot and few have read it. The prose is funnier than the films. |
| The fiction reader | Small Things Like These · Claire Keegan (2021) | ~115 | An Irish coal merchant, the week before Christmas 1985, and a decision. Booker-shortlisted. Readable in one sitting by the fire. |
| The one having a hard year | The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse · Charlie Mackesy (2019) | ~130 | Ink drawings and a few kind sentences per page. Hard to give wrongly. |
| The busy one | On the Shortness of Life · Seneca | ~100 | A Roman on why you feel short of time. The Penguin Great Ideas edition is pocket-sized and cheap. |
| The thinker | Tao Te Ching · Laozi | ~80 | 81 short chapters on doing less. Which translation to buy. |
| The graduate, the new hire | Letters to a Young Poet · Rainer Maria Rilke | ~80 | 10 letters of advice to a 19-year-old. Works for anyone starting something. |
| The teenager | We Should All Be Feminists · Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014) | ~50 | A talk turned into an essay. An hour's read that starts conversations. |
| The one who reads on the train | The Old Man and the Sea · Ernest Hemingway (1952) | ~100 | A fisherman and a marlin. 2 commutes. |
| The child in every adult | The Little Prince · Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943) | ~96 | Bought for children, kept by grown-ups. The small hardcover is the one to give. |
| The Stoic-curious | The Enchiridion · Epictetus | ~40 | The Stoic handbook. Short enough to reread every January. |
| The strategist | The Art of War · Sun Tzu | ~90 | 13 chapters, mostly about how to avoid a fight. |
| The one who likes odd things | The Metamorphosis · Franz Kafka (1915) | ~60 | A salesman wakes up as an insect and worries about being late for work. |
| The collector | Penguin Little Black Classics | ~60 each | A series of tiny paperbacks that Penguin launched in 2015 for its 80th birthday. Sappho and Poe are in there with 78 others. They cost about as much as a coffee, so buy 3. |
| The baby | ABC Alphabet Doodle Dogs · ours | 30 | A board book of 26 dogs, A to Z, built to be chewed. ★4.6 across 73 Amazon ratings. |
What fits in a stocking
Mass-market paperbacks and the small gift hardcovers do. Trade paperbacks mostly don't. If it has to physically go in the sock, look for Penguin's Great Ideas and Little Black Classics, Oxford's Very Short Introductions, or any pocket hardcover edition of a classic.
Very Short Introductions deserve a mention of their own. There are hundreds, each about 120 to 150 pages on one subject by an academic who knows it, and picking the one on their hobby shows more thought than the price suggests.
Short books for Secret Santa
Most of this list sits inside a normal Secret Santa budget. Small Things Like These is the pick for a colleague you don't know well. It's a short, recent novel set at Christmas, so it's hard to get wrong.
Mackesy is the other safe one. For a colleague you do know, match the subject using the table.
The opposite gift
Every book we publish for adults runs to about 370 pages, so none of them belongs in this table. They're the opposite idea: one page a day for a year instead of one sitting.
The two go well together. A small book for the week after Christmas and a page-a-day book that starts on January 1 cover the whole year for about the price of a jumper.
More short reads, fiction and non-fiction, are in our list of books under 100 pages.
Common questions
What books make good stocking stuffers?
Short, small-format ones: A Christmas Carol, Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These, Charlie Mackesy's The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, or 2 or 3 Penguin Little Black Classics.
What is a good small book to give as a gift?
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan for a fiction reader, The Little Prince in a small hardcover for almost anyone, and Letters to a Young Poet for someone starting a new job or course.
What is a good short book for Secret Santa?
Small Things Like These or The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Both are recent, quick to read and safe for a colleague you don't know well.
What is a good short book to read at Christmas?
A Christmas Carol is about 90 pages and better than its adaptations. Small Things Like These is set in the week before Christmas 1985 and takes an evening.
Are small books a cheap-looking gift?
They don't have to be. A pocket hardcover or 3 Little Black Classics tied together looks chosen. Write the date and a line inside the cover.