Ten-Minute Book Club
Deep Dives into Short Reads
Will be published approx. on 9. August 2026
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-1-85124-655-7 (ISBN)
Description
Are you looking to join a book club, but short on time to read every book?
This rich and diverse selection of unforgettable writing is carefully curated for a ten-minute hit of literary wonder.
An anthology with a twist, the featured books cover myriad periods, forms and genres, offering instantly appealing reading material on a range of emotions from joy to terror. It includes well-known writers such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Dickinson alongside writers from the Harlem Renaissance, the women's rights movement of the early twentieth century and from many parts of the world. Each excerpt is framed by a concise analysis, getting to the heart of the short read, introducing the author and suggesting further literary adventures.
Perfect for the daily commute, or as an inspirational gift for a curious reader, this book is a must-have of pure reading pleasure.
This rich and diverse selection of unforgettable writing is carefully curated for a ten-minute hit of literary wonder.
An anthology with a twist, the featured books cover myriad periods, forms and genres, offering instantly appealing reading material on a range of emotions from joy to terror. It includes well-known writers such as William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Dickinson alongside writers from the Harlem Renaissance, the women's rights movement of the early twentieth century and from many parts of the world. Each excerpt is framed by a concise analysis, getting to the heart of the short read, introducing the author and suggesting further literary adventures.
Perfect for the daily commute, or as an inspirational gift for a curious reader, this book is a must-have of pure reading pleasure.
Reviews / Votes
The magic of this beautifully curated book is that you can spend ten satisfying minutes on a perfect short text - or you can be led into a lifetime of sparkling reading possibilities. -- Marion Turner This book is a treasure chest; an introduction to some of the sharpest, boldest, wittiest and most generous minds in literary history. -- Katherine RundellMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85124-655-7 (9781851246557)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
KIRSTEN E. SHEPHERD is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford. She founded LitHits in 2018.
ALEXANDRA PADDOCK is a Lecturer in Old and Middle English at Keble College, Oxford. She is a lead curator of LitHits.
DANIEL IBRAHIM ABDALLA is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Liverpool. He is a lead curator of LitHits.
ALEXANDRA PADDOCK is a Lecturer in Old and Middle English at Keble College, Oxford. She is a lead curator of LitHits.
DANIEL IBRAHIM ABDALLA is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Liverpool. He is a lead curator of LitHits.
Content
1 Emily Dickinson, 'The Brain is Wider than the Sky' 5
2 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 8
3 Lord Byron, 'Darkness' 14
4 George Eliot, Middlemarch 19
5 Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, 'At Bay St Louis' 22
6 Emily Bronte, 'Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee' 25
7 William Wordsworth, The Prelude 28
8 Aphra Behn, The Rover 32
9 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 35
10 Charles Dickens, Bleak House 38
11 Margaret Oliphant, 'The Library Window' 42
12 Christina Rossetti, 'No, thank you, John' 46
13 William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for
Freedom 49
14 John Milton, Sonnet 19: 'When I consider how my light
is spent' 53
15 Louisa May Alcott, Little Women 56
16 Frederick Douglass, 'What, to the slave, is the Fourth of
July?' 62
17 William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra 64
18 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'Ulysses' 67
19 A.A. Milne, 'Disobedience' 71
20 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 75
21 Langston Hughes, 'Theme for English B' 79
22 Matthew Henson, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole 82
23 Hans Christian Andersen, 'The Fir-Tree' 85
24 John Donne, 'A Valediction: of Weeping' 91
25 Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'Pied Beauty' 94
26 Emily Dickinson, 'Dear March-come in-' 96
27 Dylan Thomas, 'Fern Hill' 99
28 William Wordsworth, 'To Sleep' 101
W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, opening of
'The Nightmare Song' from Iolanthe 102
29 Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'The Rhodora' 105
30 Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' 107
31 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables 112
32 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 29 Sonnets from the
Portuguese 117
33 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 'The Revolt of "Mother"' 119
34 Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 123
35 Countee Cullen, 'The Wise' 127
36 W.B. Yeats, 'No Second Troy' 129
37 Emily Dickinson, 'The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually' 132
38 William Wordsworth, 'Daffodils' 134
39 Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past 137
40 E.M. Forster, A Passage to India 144
41 Harindranath Chattopadhyay, 'Noon' 149
42 John Keats, 'Ode on Melancholy' 151
43 Georgia Douglas Johnson, 'The Heart of a Woman' 154
44 Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 156
45 Sarojini Naidu, 'In the Bazaars of Hyderabad' 159
46 Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Lantern-Bearers' 163
47 Jessie Redmon Fauset, 'La vie c'est la vie' 167
48 Edith Wharton, 'Mrs Manstey's View' 169
49 William Blake, 'London' 172
50 Vernon Lee, 'The Doll' 175
51 Charlotte Smith, 'On Being Cautioned Against Walking
on a Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because it was
Frequented by a Lunatic' 179
52 Otto Leland Bohanan, 'Villanelle' 181
53 Yone Noguchi, 'To a Sparrow' 183
54 Charlotte Mew, 'The Farmer's Bride' 185
55 Emily Dickinson, 'Vegetation's Juggler' 189
56 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'Merlin and Vivien' 192
57 Oscar Wilde, 'The Happy Prince' 195
58 Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady 200
59 Joseph S. Cotter Jr, 'Rain Music' 203
60 Amy Lowell, 'The Emperor's Garden' 205
61 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 207
62 George Moses Horton, 'Weep' 211
63 Karel and Josef Capek, R.U.R. 214
64 Claude McKay, 'Subway Wind' 218
65 Djuna Barnes, 'A Night Among the Horses' 220
66 Jean Toomer, Cane 224
67 Constance Naden, 'The Astronomer' 227
68 Kate Chopin, The Awakening 229
69 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species 232
70 Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain 235
71 Willa Cather, My Antonia 239
72 Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South 242
73 James Joyce, Ulysses 248
74 E. Pauline Johnson, 'Joe' 251
75 Riddle 57 the Exeter Book 254
76 L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 256
77 Willis Richardson, 'The After-Thought' 260
78 Margaret Marshall Saunders, Beautiful Joe 262
79 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat 265
80 Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave
and Four Years in the White House 270
81 Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince 274
82 Sojourner Truth, speech given at the Women's Convention
in Akron, Ohio 277
83 Wilfred Owen, 'Arms and the Boy' 280
84 Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Adventure of Silver Blaze' 283
85 Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 287
86 Jane Austen, Persuasion 293
87 Phillis Wheatley Peters, 'A Hymn to the Evening' 296
88 Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the
Cevennes 298
89 William Stanley Braithwaite, 'Rhapsody' 303
90 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat 305
2 Mary Shelley, Frankenstein 8
3 Lord Byron, 'Darkness' 14
4 George Eliot, Middlemarch 19
5 Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, 'At Bay St Louis' 22
6 Emily Bronte, 'Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee' 25
7 William Wordsworth, The Prelude 28
8 Aphra Behn, The Rover 32
9 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales 35
10 Charles Dickens, Bleak House 38
11 Margaret Oliphant, 'The Library Window' 42
12 Christina Rossetti, 'No, thank you, John' 46
13 William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for
Freedom 49
14 John Milton, Sonnet 19: 'When I consider how my light
is spent' 53
15 Louisa May Alcott, Little Women 56
16 Frederick Douglass, 'What, to the slave, is the Fourth of
July?' 62
17 William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra 64
18 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'Ulysses' 67
19 A.A. Milne, 'Disobedience' 71
20 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 75
21 Langston Hughes, 'Theme for English B' 79
22 Matthew Henson, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole 82
23 Hans Christian Andersen, 'The Fir-Tree' 85
24 John Donne, 'A Valediction: of Weeping' 91
25 Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'Pied Beauty' 94
26 Emily Dickinson, 'Dear March-come in-' 96
27 Dylan Thomas, 'Fern Hill' 99
28 William Wordsworth, 'To Sleep' 101
W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, opening of
'The Nightmare Song' from Iolanthe 102
29 Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'The Rhodora' 105
30 Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' 107
31 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables 112
32 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 29 Sonnets from the
Portuguese 117
33 Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 'The Revolt of "Mother"' 119
34 Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt 123
35 Countee Cullen, 'The Wise' 127
36 W.B. Yeats, 'No Second Troy' 129
37 Emily Dickinson, 'The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually' 132
38 William Wordsworth, 'Daffodils' 134
39 Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past 137
40 E.M. Forster, A Passage to India 144
41 Harindranath Chattopadhyay, 'Noon' 149
42 John Keats, 'Ode on Melancholy' 151
43 Georgia Douglas Johnson, 'The Heart of a Woman' 154
44 Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre 156
45 Sarojini Naidu, 'In the Bazaars of Hyderabad' 159
46 Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Lantern-Bearers' 163
47 Jessie Redmon Fauset, 'La vie c'est la vie' 167
48 Edith Wharton, 'Mrs Manstey's View' 169
49 William Blake, 'London' 172
50 Vernon Lee, 'The Doll' 175
51 Charlotte Smith, 'On Being Cautioned Against Walking
on a Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because it was
Frequented by a Lunatic' 179
52 Otto Leland Bohanan, 'Villanelle' 181
53 Yone Noguchi, 'To a Sparrow' 183
54 Charlotte Mew, 'The Farmer's Bride' 185
55 Emily Dickinson, 'Vegetation's Juggler' 189
56 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'Merlin and Vivien' 192
57 Oscar Wilde, 'The Happy Prince' 195
58 Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady 200
59 Joseph S. Cotter Jr, 'Rain Music' 203
60 Amy Lowell, 'The Emperor's Garden' 205
61 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations 207
62 George Moses Horton, 'Weep' 211
63 Karel and Josef Capek, R.U.R. 214
64 Claude McKay, 'Subway Wind' 218
65 Djuna Barnes, 'A Night Among the Horses' 220
66 Jean Toomer, Cane 224
67 Constance Naden, 'The Astronomer' 227
68 Kate Chopin, The Awakening 229
69 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species 232
70 Mary Austin, The Land of Little Rain 235
71 Willa Cather, My Antonia 239
72 Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South 242
73 James Joyce, Ulysses 248
74 E. Pauline Johnson, 'Joe' 251
75 Riddle 57 the Exeter Book 254
76 L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables 256
77 Willis Richardson, 'The After-Thought' 260
78 Margaret Marshall Saunders, Beautiful Joe 262
79 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat 265
80 Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave
and Four Years in the White House 270
81 Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince 274
82 Sojourner Truth, speech given at the Women's Convention
in Akron, Ohio 277
83 Wilfred Owen, 'Arms and the Boy' 280
84 Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Adventure of Silver Blaze' 283
85 Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol 287
86 Jane Austen, Persuasion 293
87 Phillis Wheatley Peters, 'A Hymn to the Evening' 296
88 Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the
Cevennes 298
89 William Stanley Braithwaite, 'Rhapsody' 303
90 Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat 305