By James Wysotski, QMI Agency

In this busy world, who has time to be well read? Tolstoy's "War and Peace"� and Hugo's "Les Miserables" weigh in at over 1,400 pages apiece, but in the time it takes to get through these two classics, you could read more than 25 books on our list.
These classics are all under 200 pages - you can zip through several in just one sitting. And remember, just because they're short doesn't mean they don't pack a punch. All of the great themes of these authors' longer works are present.

Be sure to click through to the end of the gallery so that you can vote in our poll and see which books readers like most.

Note: The length of each novel varies between publications. While you might own a copy that exceeds our 200-page limit, shorter versions are available.

Book: Animal Farm
Author: George Orwell
Year: 1945
Pages: 112

What it's about: A satirical look at the Russian revolution and Stalin's rise to power, "Animal Farm" explains what can go wrong when good intentions get corrupted by greed and a thirst for more power. Napoleon the pig promises a better life to the other animals on Manor Farm after overthrowing his human owner. Gradually, a society built on equality becomes anything but.

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Book: Of Mice and Men
Author: John Steinbeck
Year: 1937
Pages: 187

What it's about: Two ranch hands go from farm to farm looking for work during the Great Depression. George looks after his strong friend Lennie who is mentally challenged. Despite his good nature, Lennie's immense strength leads to his undoing.

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Book: The Old Man and the Sea
Author: Ernest Hemmingway
Year: 1952
Pages: 93

What it's about: An aging fisherman, Santiago, tries to land a huge marlin by himself on his small boat. It's a multi-day affair that tests his mental and physical strength.

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Book: Heart of Darkness
Author: Joseph Conrad
Year: 1899
Pages: 72

What it's about: Marlow recounts his nightmarish journey up a river into Africa's jungle interior to find Kurtz, an ivory trader who also works for 'The Company'. Along the way, he witnesses the atrocious manner in which natives are treated, only to find things get much worse once he meets Kurtz.

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Book: Lord of the Flies
Author: William Golding
Year: 1954
Pages: 176

What it's about: A group of boys stranded on an island try to form their own society, but fail miserably. Morals go out the back door when group dynamics supersede the needs of the individual.

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Book: The Metamorphosis
Author: Franz Kafka
Year: 1915
Pages: 42

What it's about: Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, awakes to find himself transformed into a giant beetle. Unsure if it's a dream, at first, Samsa must come to terms with his new reality and all of the difficulties it causes, including strained relations with his already damaged family.

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Book: The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Year: 1925
Pages: 180

What it's about: When Nick Carroway moves to New York to start his career, his life becomes entwined with rich pals Tom and Daisy, and eventually the mysterious Gatsby who throws wonderful parties. Bizarre love triangles abound before tragedy strikes.

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Book: The Stranger (or The Outsider)
Author: Albert Camus
Year: 1943
Pages: 128

What it's about: When Meursault, a Frenchman living in Algiers, inexplicably kills an Arab man, he faces his trial and potential execution with atypical detachment. This quintessential existential book questions the absurdity of human existence.

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Book: Slaughterhouse-Five
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Year: 1969
Pages: 186

What it's about: Billy Pilgrim, a POW in Germany, becomes "unstuck in time" and experiences his life out of sequence. Billy questions free will and the senselessness of life. Oh yeah, he also recounts his kidnapping by the alien Tralfamadorians. A brilliant dark comedy.

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Book: Breakfast at Tiffany's
Author: Truman Capote
Year: 1958
Pages: 160

What it's about: Holly Golightly has no job, and bounces back and forth between wealthy men who shower her with lavish gifts. She is the original socialite, and she doesn't know what really matters in her confusing life.

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Book: The Time Machine
Author: H.G. Wells
Year: 1895
Pages: 85

What it's about: After traveling through time to the year 802,701 A.D., our narrator encounters two societies with an unexpected symbiotic relationship. The future is dim - and only seems to be getting worse.

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Book: The Call of the Wild
Author: Jack London
Year: 1903
Pages: 80

What it's about: There's a little wildness in everyone, including Buck, a big St. Bernard-Scotch Collie dog who becomes the lead of a Klondike sled team. Once freed of a dreadful life, Buck gradually joins a wolf pack, but cannot fully abandon who he is. It's nature vs. nurture in this return to the wild.

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Book: The Red Badge of Courage
Author: Stephen Crane
Year: 1895
Pages: 146

What it's about: It's a fine line between heroism and cowardice. After fleeing a Civil War battle, young Private Henry Fleming come to terms with his actions in the most noble way possible.

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Book: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Year: 1886
Pages: 64

What it's about: We all think we know the story: split personalities, one moral and one evil. But there's more depth than you'd expect in Jekyll's character as he battles his other half's famous animalistic tendencies. Do we have it in ourselves to contain the darkness?

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Book: The Turn of the Screw
Author: Henry James
Year: 1898
Pages: 96

What it's about: Is the governess sane? It's a question still debated as many readers have vastly different interpretations of this suspenseful ghost story.

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Book: Anthem
Author: Ayn Rand
Year: 1938
Pages: 104

What it's about: In this book's dystopian future, there is no such thing as the individual; saying "I"� or "me"� is punishable by death. Every facet of society is carefully planned and equal. So, what happens when one man dares to think differently?

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Book: The Scarlet Letter
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Year: 1850
Pages: 192

What it's about: Set in 17th-century Puritan times, Hester Prynne has an affair and becomes pregnant. She is labelled an adulteress and struggles to deal with the guilt of her sin and the harsh judgement of others while creating a new life for her and her daughter.

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Book: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Author: Mark Twain
Year: 1876
Pages: 192

What it's about: Young, mischievous Tom Sawyer and his friend Huckleberry Finn bounce from one bad situation to another. But nothing compares to when they witness a murder, flee, and then deal with the guilt of doing nothing about it.

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Book: Bear
Author: Marian Engel
Year: 1976
Pages: 128

What it's about: This list needed some Canadian content. What better place to start than with the erotic 1976 Governor General's Award winner? In an attempt to escape her dreary life, a librarian named Lou accepts a job on a remote island in northern Ontario where the only other inhabitant is a bear with whom she has a "unique"� relationship. You'll be glad you put aside "Fifty Shades"� to read this journey of self-discovery.

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Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Author: Zora Neale Hurston
Year: 1937
Pages: 184

What it's about: Originally rejected by the African-American community for accommodating white standards, Hurston's novel is now recognized for its powerful voice among women's literature. The story follows the highs and many lows of Janie Crawford's relationships as she struggles to find happiness in a suppressive world.

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Book: A Christmas Carol
Author: Charles Dickens
Year: 1843
Pages: 160

What it's about: A classic made into countless films, everyone knows the story of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve in an attempt to make him realize how his faults negatively affect both himself and others. If you can't find a copy, go see Bill Murray's "Scrooged".

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Book: A Clockwork Orange
Author: Anthony Burgess
Year: 1962
Pages: 149

What it's about: Alex and his pals, the "droogs",� have a taste for extreme violence in this futuristic dystopia. Once caught, his treatment is the experimental "Ludovico Technique",� a form of aversion therapy. But can he be "fixed",� and does he have a choice in whether he is truly good or evil?

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Book: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Year: 1953
Pages: 179

What it's about: Bradbury insists this is NOT a novel about the censorship of dissenting ideas, even though his vision of the future entails the burning of all books. Instead, he says it's about how TV and mass media sour our interest in literature. He has a point, doesn't he?

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Book: The Fire Next Time
Author: James Baldwin
Year: 1963
Pages: 106

What it's about: A book comprised of two essays presented as long letters, it is one of the most influential novels about race relations in the mid-1900s, focusing on the consequences of racial injustice.

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Book: The Wars
Author: Timothy Findley
Year: 1977
Pages: 191

What it's about: Also a winner of the Governor General's Award (1977), "The Wars" tells of the horrors a young officer experiences in the First World War. The main character, Robert Ross, is a compassionate man who also battles internal wars while coping with both the death of his sister and the necessity to kill during war.

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Book: Night
Author: Elie Wiesel
Year: 1955
Pages: 109

What it's about: This memoir relates Wiesel's experiences in Nazi concentration camps with his father during the Holocaust. Often morbidly graphic, it shows his disgust with humanity's capacity to treat others inhumanely. It is the first in a trilogy that explains his state of mind following the Second World War.

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Book: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Author: Muriel Spark
Year: 1961
Pages: 160

What it's about: A teacher, Miss Brodie, mentors six young girls, enabling them to become the school's elite students. However, the girls will learn more than expected about the complicacies of life, leading one to betray Brodie. But which one is it, and why?

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Book: Around the World in Eighty Days
Author: Jules Verne
Year: 1873
Pages: 152

What it's about: Phileas Fogg, a rich English gentleman, risks his fortune on a wager that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days. While visiting exotic places, he is chased by a Scotland Yard inspector who thinks he and his buddy, Passepartout, are bank robbers. Trust us, it's a grand adventure.

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Book: Wide Sargasso Sea
Author: Jean Rhys
Year: 1966
Pages: 156

What it's about: A prequel to Charlotte Bronte's Jean Erye, this novel explains how Antoinette Cosway's mental state breaks down, as a result of inequality and forced assimilation, to the point where she becomes the mad Bertha Mason.

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Book: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger
Year: 1951
Pages: 214

What it's about: OK, this one weighs in above the 200-page cut-off, but it's too important of a book to skip because of a few extra pages. As relevant today as when it was written, the book beautifully captures teenagers' angst and need to rebel. Holden Caulfield recounts his downward spiral, and how one dedicated teacher helps him reach a turning point.

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Plus, five other honourable mentions:

Ethan Frome (1911), by Edith Wharton - 195 pages
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), by Lewis Caroll - 144 pages
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), by Thornton Wilder - 138 pages
Siddhartha (1922), by Herman Hesse - 152 pages
Death in Venice (1912), by Thomas Mann - 92 pages