Choosing Short Books for Long Walking Days

The case for thin spines and long days

There is a particular kind of arithmetic that governs a day on the fells. It goes something like this: you have a distance, an amount of ascent, a weather forecast that will almost certainly be wrong, and a body that will be asked to carry everything you have chosen to bring. Into that calculation, most of us pack a waterproof, a spare layer, food, water, and — if we are being honest — at least one item that is purely for pleasure.

A book is the best of those items, and also the most easily overdone. A fat hardback weighs around 600g. A thick paperback can sit near 400g. On a twenty-kilometre day with 900 metres of ascent, that is a genuine burden, felt most keenly on the last pull up to the col when your legs have already spent their goodwill. A slim paperback of 150 to 200 pages, by contrast, weighs somewhere between 120g and 180g — less than a flask of tea, and worth considerably more at four o'clock in the afternoon.

Short books are not a compromise. They are the correct choice for a long walking day, and the reasons go well beyond weight.

What actually counts as short

When walkers ask me what to take, I usually suggest aiming for something under 200 pages, and ideally under 150. That is a realistic companion for a full day out, because you will not read anything like the whole thing. You will read for twenty minutes at lunch, perhaps half an hour in the evening, and a few pages at a summit while the cloud shifts. At a comfortable hill pace of reading — distracted, cold-fingered, interrupted by a passing raven — that is thirty or forty pages.

Good candidates include:

• Novellas and short novels — the classic thin-spined Penguin or Faber editions, often under 150 pages and comfortably pocket-sized.
• Essay collections — ideal because each piece stands alone, so an interruption costs you nothing.
• Short story cycles — a story per rest stop gives the day a pleasant rhythm.
• Poetry pamphlets — barely 80g, and surprisingly good company on a long trudge.
• Nature diaries and travel journals — short entries, easy to dip into, thematically at home in the hills.

What you want to avoid is anything with a dense, interlocking plot you will lose track of. If you cannot put the book down for three hours and pick it up again without confusion, it belongs in your living room, not your rucksack.

Packing it properly

A book is a square, rigid object, and rucksacks are full of curves. Treat it accordingly.

Keep it in a dry bag or a heavy zip-lock bag, even on a sunny forecast. British weather has a long history of ambushing readers, and a swollen paperback is a miserable thing. Store it flat against your back panel, where it adds almost no bulk and actually stiffens the pack a little. Alternatively, a slim paperback fits neatly down the side of a lid pocket, which is useful because you can reach it without unpacking everything you own at a windy summit.

Do not be tempted to take two books "just in case". Take one short book and, if you want variety, one slim essay collection. Two thin books weigh more than one thick one and will double the clutter. Leave the hardback at home for anything longer than a single day out.

Reading on the hill, sensibly

The rule that matters most is simple: never read while navigating. It sounds obvious, but the temptation at a summit cairn is real, and a misplaced foot on wet rock does not care how good the prose is.

Instead, build reading into the natural pauses. A lunch stop behind a dry stone wall, out of the wind, is the best reading spot in Britain. Twenty minutes with a book and a sandwich will do more for your legs than twenty minutes of scrolling. On a bothy evening, a book is a civilised alternative to staring at a damp wall or listening to someone's stove. In a tent at half past eight, with the light fading, a few pages is a proper ending to a day.

Carry a small head torch rather than relying on a phone. It is lighter on battery, and the light is kinder on the eyes.

Matching the book to the day

There is an art to this, and it is worth learning. Match the reading to the walking, and both improve.

• Bleak weather, bleak landscape — reach for something warm and humane rather than grim. A comic novel in horizontal rain on a Pennine edge is a genuine restorative.
• Long, steady, low-level miles — essay collections and travel writing suit a rhythm that does not demand constant attention.
• Short winter days — poetry and very short fiction, because the light will not give you long.
• A bothy or a long wild camp — this is your one chance to carry something slightly more substantial, so take a novella you have been saving.

There is also a pleasure in reading something rooted in the landscape under your boots. Classic short novels of rural hardship and weather feel different when you are actually cold.

Building a fell-walking shelf

Over the years I have settled on a loose shelf of books that earn their place in a rucksack: short nineteenth-century novels by writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelley, whose brevity often surprises people; single-story volumes by Joseph Conrad; essay collections from the mid-twentieth century, which are generally slim and beautifully made; and any number of nature diaries, which are purpose-built for reading in five-minute stretches.

Second-hand shops in hill towns are goldmines for this. A slightly foxed, well-made paperback of 140 pages, bought for a pound in a Cumbrian bookshop, is arguably the finest piece of lightweight kit available to a walker. It costs less than a pair of socks, weighs about the same, and will keep you company over many hundreds of miles.

So next time you are packing for a long day out, weigh your book. If it comes in under 200g and under 200 pages, you have got it exactly right. The hills will still be there tomorrow; a good short book will make today better.