Dan Rhodes top 10 short books

Dan Rhodes is the author of Anthropology, Timoleon Vieta Come Home, and most recently, Gold, a tale of a Japanese woman finding her place in a small, Welsh seaside community. It is a short book and, according to the book's publisher, read it and "you'll laugh, probably cry and you'll be finished in time to go to the pub".

He named his top 10 short books for the Guardian. Here are the first three titles on the list:

1. The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe
This beauty is a handy cautionary tale for anybody experiencing the agony of unrequited love. It's a one-sitting life-saver.

2. The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
His name makes him sound like a range of cardigans, but Cornell Woolrich was in fact a writer of highly-wrought suspense fiction, this one being a fine example. In his 1948 book Rendezvous In Black, the main character is called Johnny Marr, and at one point he has a fight with a man called Morrissey. A must-read for Smiths fans.

3. The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger
An obvious choice, but so what? It's a cracker. I wonder if prize panels these days would dismiss this as being 'somewhat slight'? I expect so.

Read the entire list.

--Marshal Zeringue