10 Brilliant Books You Can Read in a Weekend

The Booker Prize-shortlisted Austrian author of A Whole Life, delivers the story of a man opening a café in 1960s Vienna, where strangers come together and form a found family. “Beautiful,” raves Publishers Weekly. “Seethaler’s story bursts with empathy. This is a winner.”

In the latest by the prize-winning Italian author of Farewell Ghosts, the lives of an 11-year-old boy and a desperate young woman are forever changed by a devastating 1908 earthquake. “It is quite simply magnificent," declared Nobel Prize laureate Annie Ernaux, who also praised this historical novel “for how it is constructed and for its human depth, how the darkness coexists with generosity.”

This recently International Booker Prize-longlisted novel is set in Berlin, following an expat couple who have built their dream life around digital success, houseplants, and curated images. But as they grow bored and disillusioned, they grapple with the emptiness of modern aspirations. The Booker judges called it “astute, discomfiting, cringe-making and often laugh-out-loud funny… holds up a mirror to the way so many people aspire to and are let down by today’s off-the-shelf measures of success. A startlingly refreshing read.”

In this sophomore novel from the author of Assembly, a young journalist uncovers the truth behind a violent attack on a Yorkshire farm, connecting a banker, a columnist, and a radical anarchist group. Her viral exposé raises more questions than answers: Who wrote it, why, and how much of it is true? “Brown seems to see deeply into the heart of the strangeness and hypocrisy of modern life,” says The Guardian.

Booker Prize-winning author of The Sense of an Ending delivers erudite essays on how we truly change our minds. Examining how we recalibrate our understanding of politics, memory, and personal truth, this book dissects the moments when convictions crumble and new insights emerge. A penetrating look at the human capacity to evolve, challenge, and reimagine our deepest held beliefs.

This debut novel packs a family saga, a penetrating picture of social inequality, and a coming-of-age story into a compact tale told in two alternating strands. A 20-year-old navigates a grueling fast-food job while recalling childhood memories of a devoted yet struggling parent. “On the Clock is a visceral depiction of manual labor, alienation, and family in rural France,” observed Vulture.

The story begins in Zurich, where a man returns to care for his elderly mother after her release from a psychiatric facility. Confronted with the dark legacy of his family's past, including his grandfather's connection to the Nazi regime, and struggling with his complicated relationship with his mother, he embarks on a road trip with her. Together, they travel across Switzerland in a hired cab, attempting to give away her enormous fortune to random strangers.

The Argentine “queen of literary horror” took TikTok by storm with her provocative debut story of cannibalism. Now she’s back with a post-apocalyptic tale that “brings us into the fold of a violent convent offering a perverse safety in a dystopian future wracked by climate catastrophe,” according to Oprah Daily.

The first novel from award-winning author Gianfranco Calligarich to be published in English follows a man in his thirties, adrift in Rome, lost in an alcoholic haze and disconnected from those around him. With no ambition and no clear purpose, he drifts between friends and jobs that hold no meaning, while the city’s oppressive heat and beauty offer both solace and cruelty. Los Angeles Review of Books called it "a slim masterpiece" and "one of those delicious minor works" that transcends national boundaries.

There’s an inspiring public service announcement embedded within the pages of this National Book Award-winning translator’s story of daughterly devotion, according to The Millions. "Through the emanating blue-glow of their computer screens, a mother and daughter, four-thousand miles apart, find solace and loneliness in their nightly Skype chats in this heartstring-pulling debut. Who's it for: Someone who needs to be reminded to CALL YOUR MOTHER!"