Ep. 1. Under 30: Books written within a month

Books, in general, take a decent amount of time to be completed. However, there are books with a lot of literary merit that have been completed in mere weeks or even days. What follows is a list of those books, the time it took for their completion, and some accompanying inspiration to get the most out of them.

Photo by Wallace Chuck

Let's start in descending order:

    ⏳ 1 month
When Muriel Spark was given the assignment to write about her summer holiday, she preferred to write about her teacher's summer holiday. As a result, now we can enjoy a refreshing story of a teacher who selects a group of students to mold them to her image. If you would like to defy expectations in a humorous and provocative way, read this book. There is also a movie adaptation from 1969. 

    ⏳ 26 days
Dostoyevsky wrote this semi-autobiographical novella while he was also writing Crime and Punishment in order to help him pay off his gambling debts. If you are a fan of literature and poker alike, there is a bid on eBay for a poster of characters of Russian literature playing poker.

    ⏳ 3 weeks
Two friends roam across America in search for self-discovery in this classic from the Beat generation. You can take a 5,529 miles long road trip from New York to San Francisco inspired by the book if you follow the infographic shared by Read and Survive blog. You can toast to Kerouac over a cocktail at Vesuvio while in San Francisco.

Road trip inspired by On the Road (from Read and Survive blog)

    ⏳ 3 weeks
Jenkins wrote this book while romantically involved with a married man. The book itself relates the story of a married man with a perfect life and a perfect wife, who might be paying too much attention to his not-so-perfect-looking neighbor. This tome goes well with a cuppa.

    ⏳ 3 weeks

    ⏳ 9 days

Both of 
these books introduced two beloved inspectors, Holmes and Maigret. Simenon suffered profound depression and writing was his therapy, leading to a prolific career (inspector Maigret series alone is 75 books long). Study in Scarlet, on another note, has provided A Clothes Horse with the inspiration for a fabulous literary outfit. As a complement, WellReadCompany has a crossbody bag and coin purse which would go perfect with it.
 

Outfit inspired by A Study in Scarlet

    ⏳ 9 days
What started as the short story "The Fireman" was promptly doubled in size to become one the best known books of the 20th century. A dystopia where books are burned (ouch!) and literature is dying as television takes over people's lives. 


Tim Federle offers us a recipe called Fahrenheit 151 in his book, Tequila Mockingbird. The 2013 paperback edition from Simon & Schuster is our feature in the Cover Gallery for this topic:


2013 Paperback edition by Simon & Schuster


This classic was written while Stevenson was suffering from nightmares of a double identity himself. In case you would like to recreate some of the spookiness of the book with a cocktail, HGTV.com has the recipe for Mr. Hyde Potion, served on a beaker and with dry ice for dramatic effect.


📗 The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

    ⏳ 2.5 days

We are featuring this moving title in our 6-word book review this week: Improbable childhood friendship across infamous fence. If you feel inspired, you can submit your own Six-Word Book Review.


There is a book, written in only 6 weeks, for which the author did not change one word after completion. This book is our feature for GuessWork this week. Can you guess the title? 

It is astonishing to think about the short time it took to complete these literary works. Do you know of any titles to add to this list?





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