Reading lists
35 Short Books to Read for Book Club, Most Under 200 Pages
Thirty-five short books for book clubs, all under 250 pages, from new releases and books in translation to easy reads, sci-fi, nonfiction and classics.
Published Nov 10, 2026
Which Christmas books do book clubs actually pick? We ranked them with Bookclubs data. These are the 24 Christmas books that the most clubs on Bookclubs met to discuss last holiday season (November 2025 through mid-January 2026) or have already scheduled for this year, starting with the most popular.
Because this list is ranked by the numbers rather than hand-picked, it leans toward holiday romance and cozy fiction, which is what most clubs choose for December. For more variety, including mysteries, classics, new 2026 releases and a wider range of authors, see our guide to the best Christmas book club books, organized by genre. We also have lists of Hanukkah books for adults and winter book club books.
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1. The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year Billed as Knives Out with a rom-com twist, it sends two rival authors to a Christmas house party in England, where their host, a famous mystery writer, vanishes. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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2. Good Spirits This paranormal Christmas romance by the author of First Time Caller features the Ghost of Christmas Past falling for the woman he's haunting. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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3. Small Things Like These In the weeks before Christmas 1985, coal merchant Bill Furlong makes a delivery to the convent in his small Irish town and discovers what the nuns have been hiding. A short, quiet novel about complicity and the cost of doing the right thing, with plenty to discuss in a single meeting. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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4. Merry Christmas, You Filthy Animal The author of How My Neighbor Stole Christmas returns with another rivals-to-lovers story, this time featuring warring Christmas tree farms. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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5. Comfort & Joy This modern-day fable from the author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds follows a woman who gets a miraculous chance at happiness. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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6. How My Neighbor Stole Christmas Grumpy Cole Black wants to hibernate through the holidays until his Christmas-loving nemesis, Storee, moves in next door and enters the town's Christmas Kringle contest. To beat her, he fakes a change of heart, and their pretend romance starts to feel real. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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7. The Christmas Bookshop Laid off and broke, prickly Carmen moves in with her picture-perfect sister in Edinburgh and takes a job reviving a dusty old bookshop before Christmas. When a famous author takes an interest in the shop, and in her, this cozy story of sisters and second chances gets complicated. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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8. In a Holidaze A down-on-her-luck woman keeps reliving her family's annual Christmas cabin trip over and over in this time-loop romance from Christina Lauren. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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9. Winter Street The first in a four-book series brings the dysfunctional Quinn family home to their Nantucket inn for a Christmas full of secrets and surprises. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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10. He Sees You When You're Sleeping Jewelry influencer Chloe is bracing for another Christmas alone when she's drawn to two men: an obsessive fan of her secret online persona and the New York firefighter who has quietly watched over her since the accident that took her family. A dark, steamy holiday stalker romance, so check the content notes before your club picks it. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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11. A Christmas Carol A classic for a reason: revisit Scrooge's night with three spirits in Dickens' beloved novella about charity, kindness and second chances. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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12. The Christmas Tree Farm Kira North hates Christmas, which is a problem now that she owns a Christmas tree farm. When a snowstorm strands vacationing fixer Ben on her land, this grumpy-sunshine romance becomes a small-town holiday neither of them expected. It reads as a standalone in the Dream Harbor series. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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13. The Plight Before Christmas After a breakup, a broken toe and a lost promotion, the last thing she wants is a family Christmas at her grandparents' cabin, especially once the ex who broke her heart nearly two decades ago shows up at the door. A funny, spicy second-chance romance about old wounds and family holidays. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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14. Hercule Poirot's Christmas For a little mystery with your holiday cheer, follow the famed detective as he investigates a murder at a family gathering on Christmas Eve. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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15. Holiday Romance Two friends trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays hit one travel disaster after another, and their friendship starts turning into something more. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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16. A Redbird Christmas Told he won't survive another Chicago winter, a man moves to a tiny Alabama town and finds a community, and a little red bird, that changes his life. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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17. The Book Club Hotel Three lifelong friends check in to the Maple Sugar Inn for their annual book club holiday and find their lives intertwined with its recently widowed owner, Hattie. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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18. Skipping Christmas Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas entirely and take a cruise, until their daughter announces she's coming home for the holidays. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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19. Christmas with the Queen It's December 1952, and the young Queen Elizabeth II is preparing her first Christmas broadcast. Behind the scenes at Sandringham, old friends Olive, a single mother chasing a reporting job at the BBC, and Jack, a widowed chef in the royal kitchens, keep crossing paths in this friends-to-lovers historical romance. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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20. The Christmas Murder Game Lily competes with her estranged cousins in the Armitage family's Christmas game of riddles, where the prize is the family estate and the answer to who killed her mother. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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21. The Christmas Fix An enemies-to-lovers Christmas romance about a reality TV star who comes to town and the grumpy town manager she can't stop clashing with. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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22. Mr. Dickens and His Carol Facing debts and a flop, Charles Dickens races to write a Christmas book in this novel that reimagines how A Christmas Carol came to be. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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23. Bright Lights, Big Christmas A small-town heroine trades her family's Christmas tree farm in the North Carolina mountains for the wilds of New York City in this Christmas romance. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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24. Murder at Holly House Yorkshire, 1952: a dead stranger is found lodged up the chimney of Holly House in a snowbound village, and a second murder soon follows. Hapless Inspector Frank Grasby learns that everyone in Elderby is hiding something in this funny, cozy country-house mystery. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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- Hanukkah Books for Adults and Book Clubs
- 17 Winter Book Club Books for Long, Cold Nights
- The Ultimate List of Book Club Discussion Questions for Fiction and Nonfiction
