10 Brilliant Books You Can Read in a Weekend

As forest fires rage and guests disappear, two women form a tense, unexpected bond in a family-owned hotel on the brink of climate disaster. Publishers Weekly called this haunting story of trust, danger, and resilience “a work of psychological suspense” that imagines “a world that no longer offers respite.”

In 33 surreal, razor-sharp stories, the Israeli master of short fiction returns with tales of time loops, AI therapists, parallel lives—and the quiet heartbreaks of the everyday. Publishers Weekly praises Keret’s “imaginative and piercing” portraits of modern anxieties, while The Guardian hails these microfictions as “gleaming splinters” that jolt and delight.

Cultural critic Maris Kreizman examines healthcare, ambition, and American delusion in essays that balance fury with affection. Kirkus calls it “intelligent and entertaining”—a clear-eyed look at how systems fail and why we still care.

When a teenage guest disrupts a bourgeois household, a woman’s quiet confession unfolds with devastating clarity. “Haushofer’s sentences are simple and concise, and full of careful thought,” praised The Nation. “The ideas she expresses are so important that you wonder how you have managed to get by without them.”

The latest from the acclaimed Spanish artist and author of When I Sing, Mountains Dance, unfolds in the mystical Guilleries mountains of Catalonia, where a family curse tied to a 400-year-old devil’s bargain echoes through generations of women. “Solà blends lyrical retellings of legends with visceral descriptions of the characters’ maladies,” says Publishers Weekly. “Readers will be transported by this intoxicating tale of resilience.”

From the acclaimed author of The Governesses, this quietly powerful novel follows an aging narrator as he recalls his strange, tender friendship with a woman haunted by delusions. Set in a France just outside of time, A Leopard-Skin Hat examines intimacy, denial, and the limits of perception with Serre’s signature restraint. Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, it’s “a probing story about the unknowability of others,” says Publishers Weekly.

“Kitamura’s novels are short, sharp, and deadly. I’m not sure there’s anyone better writing in America today,” declared The Guardian in their roundup of fiction to watch in 2025. In Audition, an accomplished actress and an attractive younger man meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. As the encounter unfolds, competing narratives emerge, questioning the roles we play and the truths we conceal.

Celebrated translator Damion Searls makes his fiction debut with a taut, month-long novella set in 2016. Amid an overstimulated world and accelerating news cycles, a group of friends in New York and San Francisco cling to film, conversation, and fleeting moments of clarity—quietly interrogating how to live meaningfully in the now.

The Booker Prize-nominated author of The Lost Dog delivers a brilliant and provocative novel about a young Sri Lankan woman whose feminist ideals clash with the messy realities of love, literature, and power. “The narrator’s clever political insights and beautiful depictions of art and literature offer readers a view into a captivating mind,” praised Publishers Weekly. “De Kretser is at the top of her game.”