Best short non-fiction books you can finish in a weekend

The picks

1. 1.

   Anything You Want, by Derek Sivers

   Best for anyone starting or running a small businessAbout 96 pages, roughly 1 h 51 min

   Forty short stories from the author's years of starting, building and selling the music company CD Baby. His own page calls them his top 40 tips for anyone starting or running a company, and says most of the lessons are counter-intuitive.

   Good

   • The shortest of the six, and each lesson stands alone
   • Stories from one real business, not theory

   Watch out for

   • Aimed at entrepreneurs, so it is less useful if you do not run or plan a business

2. 2.

   On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder

   Best for readers who want a short historical argument about democracyAbout 128 pages, roughly 2 h 28 min

   A short guide to resisting authoritarianism. The author's page says that we might learn from the experience of Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism or communism, and a blurb there says it can be read in one sitting.

   Good

   • Can be read in one sitting
   • Draws its lessons from 20th-century European history

   Watch out for

   • A political book written from a clear point of view, so it suits readers who want that argument

3. 3.

   Make Your Bed, by Admiral William H. McRaven

   Best for a short, practical push toward discipline and resilienceAbout 144 pages, roughly 2 h 46 min

   The publisher describes ten principles from Navy SEAL training, built on the author's 2014 commencement speech at the University of Texas at Austin, with stories from his own life and from people he met in service.

   Good

   • Ten short lessons, easy to read in pieces
   • Built on a commencement speech that the publisher says went viral

   Watch out for

   • Principles and personal stories, going by the publisher's description, rather than data

4. 4.

   Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon

   Best for anyone making things who feels stuck on originalityAbout 160 pages, roughly 3 h 5 min

   Ten things the author wished he had heard when starting out, expanded from a 2011 talk into a book published by Workman in 2012. They include writing the book you want to read, using your hands, and the idea that creativity is subtraction.

   Good

   • Ten ideas, each one short enough to try the same day
   • Illustrated, and a Forbes quote on the author's page calls it a quick read

   Watch out for

   • Aimed at creative work, so less useful for other fields

5. 5.

   Six Easy Pieces, by Richard P. Feynman

   Best for learning how a physicist thinks, with no math backgroundAbout 176 pages, roughly 3 h 23 min

   Six lessons from the lectures Feynman gave at Caltech from 1961 to 1963, which the publisher says changed how physics is taught around the world.

   Good

   • A Nobel laureate explaining basic physics in plain terms
   • Six self-contained lessons

   Watch out for

   • The lectures date from the 1960s, so check newer books for current physics

6. 6.

   The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield

   Best for people who keep putting off the work they care aboutAbout 192 pages, roughly 3 h 42 min

   The author's page describes explaining the concept of Resistance to friends who wanted to write a book: the self-doubt, vanity, fear and self-sabotage that stand between you and the work you want to do. His site offers a free 27-minute mini-course of five audio lessons.

   Good

   • A single idea, Resistance, applied from every side
   • A free audio mini-course to try the idea first

   Watch out for

   • The longest of the six at 192 pages, and Open Library lists editions of 165 to 192 pages

How we chose: We looked for non-fiction books under 200 pages that a general reader can finish in a weekend, with a real author or publisher page to describe them. We ranked them from shortest to longest, because the first book you finish matters most. Page counts are the publisher's listed page count where we checked one (Hachette for Make Your Bed, 144, and Six Easy Pieces, 176) and the Open Library median across editions for the others, so your edition will differ. Reading time is pages times 275 words a page, divided by 238 words a minute, the average silent reading speed for adult non-fiction in a 2019 review of 190 studies; the 275 words a page is our own estimate. Descriptions are the authors' and publishers' own, and we did not read the books.