The Novel That Is Exactly as Long as It Needs to Be

Piranesi is 272 pages and every one of them is necessary. Susanna Clarke's second novel is about a man named Piranesi who lives in a vast labyrinthine house full of statues and halls and tides, and who keeps meticulous journals about his world. The mystery of who he is and how he got there unfolds with extraordinary precision. I read it in one afternoon and then sat quietly for a while because the feeling it left was not like any other novel I had finished.