What are the 12 best reads for the time-pressed intellectual?

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What are the 12 best reads for the time-pressed intellectual?

In the same month that the French author Patrick Modiano was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, France's culture minister Fleur Pellerin admitted that she has no time for books, writes Fiona Wilson. "I haven't had time to read anything in the last two years except for a lot of notes, legislative texts and news wires," she told the television channel Canal+. Nonsense! There are hundreds of classic novels that, at under 200 pages, you could read in one happy sitting. So here's our top 12 quick reads for the time-pressed intellectual, starting with the shortest... The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin (114 pages) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (128 pages) Night Walks by Charles Dickens (128 pages) The Time Machine by HG Wells (144 pages) The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (144 pages) Candide by Voltaire (144 pages) The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (160 pages) Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (160 pages) Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (176 pages) Amsterdam by Ian McEwan (192 pages) The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (192 pages) The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter (192 pages)

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