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Reading path

One Sitting

Works you can start and finish in a single session. Most under an hour. All of them hit harder than books ten times their length. Poems, speeches, short stories, and essays that deliver their full force in one concentrated burst. There is no warm-up, no filler, no gradual build. These works walk into the room, say something unforgettable, and leave. The brevity is the point. Nothing has been left out. Everything unnecessary has simply been burned away.

In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.

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The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.

The route

  • 1. OzymandiasPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1818
  • 2. Dover BeachMatthew Arnold, 1867
  • 3. My Last DuchessRobert Browning, 1842
  • 4. The Road Not TakenRobert Frost, 1916
  • 5. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy EveningRobert Frost, 1923
  • 6. I Wandered Lonely as a CloudWilliam Wordsworth, 1807
  • 7. Kubla KhanSamuel Taylor Coleridge, 1816
  • 8. Ode to a NightingaleJohn Keats, 1819
  • 9. Ode on a Grecian UrnJohn Keats, 1819
  • 10. To AutumnJohn Keats, 1819
  • 11. The WindhoverGerard Manley Hopkins, 1889
  • 12. Because I could not stop for DeathEmily Dickinson, 1890
  • 13. I felt a Funeral in my BrainEmily Dickinson, 1896
  • 14. The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockT.S. Eliot, 1915
  • 15. Musée des Beaux ArtsW.H. Auden, 1938
  • 16. Funeral BluesW.H. Auden, 1938
  • 17. The Second ComingW.B. Yeats, 1920
  • 18. Sailing to ByzantiumW.B. Yeats, 1927
  • 19. Do Not Go Gentle into That Good NightDylan Thomas, 1952
  • 20. AubadePhilip Larkin, 1977
  • 21. Death FuguePaul Celan, 1948
  • 22. IthakaC.P. Cavafy, 1911
  • 23. Fragment 31Sappho, 600 BCE
  • 24. One ArtElizabeth Bishop, 1976
  • 25. The Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasUrsula K. Le Guin, 1973
  • 26. Hills Like White ElephantsErnest Hemingway, 1927
  • 27. A Modest ProposalJonathan Swift, 1729
  • 28. The Tell-Tale HeartEdgar Allan Poe, 1843
  • 29. The LotteryShirley Jackson, 1948
  • 30. I Have a DreamMartin Luther King Jr., 1963
  • 31. The Yellow WallpaperCharlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892
  • 32. The Charge of the Light BrigadeAlfred, Lord Tennyson, 1854
  • 33. On First Looking into Chapman's HomerJohn Keats, 1816
  • 34. On Seeing the Elgin MarblesJohn Keats, 1817
  • 35. Ode to the West WindPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1820
  • 36. To a SkylarkPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1820
  • 37. When I Have Fears That I May Cease to BeJohn Keats, 1818
  • 38. Bright StarJohn Keats, 1819
  • 39. The RavenEdgar Allan Poe, 1845
  • 40. Annabel LeeEdgar Allan Poe, 1849
  • 41. The Night Before ChristmasClement Clarke Moore, 1823