This miniature book containing the Lord's Prayer and measuring 5 x 5 mm is believed to be the world's smallest
There are two ways of ending up with a short book: start with a blank page and build up, or start with a bloated manuscript and chop. Lorin Stein, a senior editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, wishes he saw more of the former. "Writers are pushing themselves to write longer than the story they have to tell," Stein says. But short reads may be making a comeback. Penguin Classics has issued three series of slim stand-alone and excerpted texts by Confucius, Marco Polo, and Vladimir Nabokov, among others. The slim volumes were created to capitalize on people's "need for speed," says Penguin Classics executive editor Elda Rotor. And editors are always on the lookout for the next small wonder. "I'm definitely open to our publishing very short novels," Stein says. Just don't call it a novella, he says. That sounds so, like, 1899.
