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The Children's Story by James Clavell.
IIRC, the book takes about 20 minutes to read and the events that take place occur in real time.
this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2024
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@Varyk How short a time are we talking?
This one might be a bit of a cheat, but: The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. Technically everything happens within a day.
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World — Elif Shafak.
Other people have already said Ulysses and Mrs Dalloway, both modernist classics that take place in a single day. There are a couple of other examples of similar novels, but the only one that springs to mind right now is a deeply annoying experimental 'novel' called Fidget by Oliver Goldsmith, which I don't recommend at all. He wore a tape recorder and spoke out loud describing everything he did that day, then transcribed it all and that's the book. If you do decide to read it, don't say I didn't warn you.
I don't know if this will count for you, but there's a hypertext novel called 253 by Geoff Ryman which IIRC takes place over just a couple of minutes, with very short chapters describing the thoughts of each of the 253 passengers on board a train. He did later also publish a print version.
Thanks, fidget does sound deeply annoying
Try the classical Greek tragedies—one of the requirements of the genre is that the action was supposed to take place in less than a day (Aristotle’s “unity of time”).
I'll look into the unity of time, thanks
Ulysses by James Joyce takes place in a day... 🫠
~~Also, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens takes place in one night~~
Oops, I forgot you said: I'd like to avoid "and it was all a dream", time travel, or similar plot devices if possible
Wow, it's really hard to think of books that only take place in a few hours. The only ones I can think of take place over the course of a day. Yeah, I guess reading plays would be your best bet
Plenty of good plays I need to catch up on anyhow
Plays tend to be very definite in timeframe.
For example God of carnage happens during a dinner iirc? And Death and the maiden during a night or so (except preface and conclusion).
That's kind of what gave rise to this question. Plays are so succinct and plotted accurate and characterization I was wondering what sort of novels also had that kind of accuracy.
But I haven't read many plays, regardless of the fact that I usually enjoy them for exactly the reason I'm asking.
So yeah, I'll definitely read some more plays, but I'm definitely going to check out some of these novels people are suggesting as well
Oops, I forgot you said: I’d like to avoid “and it was all a dream”
But it wasn't! Even if it did inspire the immortal line: " There's more of gravy than of grave about you"
Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine - basically takes place over the course of a lunch break - with a few footnotes and digressions.
OK, a LOT of footnotes and digressions. But, still, a lunch break.
Great, thanks
I haven’t read it yet, but Martin Riker’s novel The Guest Lecture apparently takes place in the mind of a professor lying awake in bed the night before she’s supposed to deliver a lecture.
The heroes by Joe Abercrombie is about a 3 day long battle.
Should I read the first four books to catch up to those events?
It can definitely be read standalone and was written to be standalone, but the other books are also fantastic and absolutely worth reading.
Okay, awesome. Thank you, I'm definitely interested
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Can't believe I forgot that
Dan Brown novels tend to be fast paced with time constraints. Not as confined as you'd like tho.
I read his famous series. At least a few of them. They did read easy
Yeah he has a very readable style. The short chapters and the cliffhanger ends to eevry chapter woth buildimg mystery, its line reading breaking bad
He said good tho