ReadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2025

Travel Size Reading Essentials

Recommendations31st July 2023

August is such a busy, exciting time for our city, with people travelling from all over the world to experience the vibrant bustle of the Fringe and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. But with summer travel comes (for us) the eternal question: How many books can I reasonably fit into this carry-on bag?

Whether you’re a visitor to Edinburgh, or perhaps a local leaving town for one last holiday before autumn arrives, here are our favourite travel size reads: mostly under 150 pages and small enough to fit in a pocket, these are the perfect books not just for keeping your luggage under the Ryanair weight limit, but also for keeping you company as you explore the cafés, parks, and other reading hideaways of an unfamiliar city.

Train Dreams cover

Train Dreams

The concentrated power of this novella is hard to account for. Denis Johnson's narrative is so elegantly designed - each leap in time feels like the natural place of departure, but it accumulates to paint a picture of a whole man's adult life, his attempts to make do, and the way that the historical setting entraps him. It is sentence for sentence a perfect book.

Marc

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Published: 4th Nov '21

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Tiny Moons cover

Tiny Moons

I first read these essays during the second lockdown, at a time when travelling felt like a distant reality. In this short-but-(bitter)sweet book, Powles writes about food with a careful attention to detail and in doing so, explores wider themes such as her Chinese-Malaysian heritage, homesickness, language, and nostalgia.

Molly

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Published: 27th Feb '20

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

You Will Feel It in The Price of Bread cover

You Will Feel It in The Price of Bread

I can see why this may seem like an odd recommendation to read on your travels, when you're attempting to enjoy summer and escape reality but there was something so heartwarming and uplifting about You Will Feel It In The Price of Bread by Katya Hudson. It's a gentle reminder of what is ongoing in Ukraine, and that many Ukrainians won't have the luxury of travelling and holidaying, but it is also such a genuine, stark illustration of the Ukrainian people; their strength, their culture, their determination, their food. A love letter to her home country, Hudson combines poetry, prose, maps and illustrations, this is an empowering memoir that invites you into the home of a Ukrainian family, welcoming you with open arms.

Kira

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Published: 23rd Feb '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Foster cover

Foster

I'm a big fan of Claire Keegan, who manages to distil so much empathy, consideration and insight into her compact novels. At 96 pages Foster is a short yet impactful read, following a young girl who is sent to live with a foster family during the summer who experiences more affection and care than she does at home. Keegan's writing is eloquent and precise, almost simplistic in it's subtle beauty and emotional weight. A book that I still think about months after reading.

Lily

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Published: 18th Aug '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Termush (Faber Editions) cover

Termush (Faber Editions)

Termush is a slim, claustrophobic novel which follows a group of wealthy guests at a luxury coastal resort in the wake of a nuclear disaster. Although originally written in 1967, many of the themes explored feel especially prescient today in the wake of a global pandemic and with the fear of climate change looming. A tense, impactful read.

Lily

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Published: 4th May '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

I'm a Fan cover

I'm a Fan

This is one of 'those' debut novels, I was awed by Patel's ability to put the here and now into words. From the off we're invited into the narrator's relationships, witnessing every whim of her compulsive Instagram usage and the chaos that ensues as a result of it.

Euan

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Published: 2nd Mar '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

Stranger, Baby cover

Stranger, Baby

Superlative: Stranger, Baby is an askew glance at the workings of grief. The book's language refutes the well-meaning bromides offered to those in mourning, opting instead to sit with unresolved feelings, to dwell in the most uncertain states of mind. Hers is a voice that admits to the brokenness of things, and it’s one to follow wherever it may lead.

Marc

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Published: 2nd Feb '17

Format: Paperback

Price: £12.99

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Ultramarine

This is a perfect blend of literary fiction and suspenseful thriller. Told from the female captain's POV, we come to understand the challenges she's faced establishing leadership in a male-dominated field, and the suffocating and creeping fear that rises from the sea when moored in the middle of nowhere. I loved this so much; the superb translation, the poetic, eerie and refined writing. If you liked Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea then this must be your next read!

Kira

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Published: 6th Jun '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.95

Rogue Protocol cover

Rogue Protocol

This series follows Murderbot, a rogue security unit, on its mission to understand its bloody past, introducing a colourful cast of characters (both AIs and humans) and expansive world-building. Each story is short and sweet, and the whole series is highly bingeable. A universe-wide conspiracy as experienced by an antisocial android that just wants to be left alone and watch space operas, what's not to love?

Ness

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Published: 1st Sep '18

Format: Hardback

Price: £14.99

Voyager cover

Voyager

A beautiful work of experimental memoir, Fernández's Voyager blends the personal with neuroscience, astrology and Chilean social history in its exploration of memory and truth.

Beth

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Published: 23rd Feb '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

The Hearing Trumpet cover

The Hearing Trumpet

The Hearing Trumpet once nearly made me miss a flight - I was sitting at the gate, but I was so absorbed they had to page for me on the intercom. Written by the surrealist Leonora Carrington, this novella follows an elderly, partially-deaf woman who's given an ornate hearing trumpet before being sent by her family to a mysterious care home. Misadventures ensue: underground caverns; occult dabblings; omnipotent bees; tinned fish. I highly recommend.

Amos

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Published: 29th Sep '05

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

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We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Perhaps my favourite horror novel of all time and one that cemented Shirley Jackson's status within the genre. We follow the narrator, Merricat, along a disturbing journey into her past, her family and the depths of her mind. This is a wildly enthralling, haunting and sinister book that will have you racing to reveal the conclusion, depsite your most certain sense of increasing dread.

Selena

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Published: 1st Oct '09

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

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Every Heart A Doorway

Nancy is back after spending some time in the underworld, and she's having trouble adjusting. Miss West's School for Wayward Children is meant to help anyone who found a door to a magical world, but soon boarders start getting killed, and all eyes are on Nancy. Can she trust the contentious alliances she's formed? Will she find the murderer? And can she ever find her way back where she belongs?

Ness

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Published: 5th Apr '16

Format: Hardback

Price: £13.99

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The Swimmers

The Swimmers is a short thoughtful novel about routine, mundanity, memory, and mothers and daughters. Otsuka takes us to the local pool where many characters find daily solace, community and comfort. The novel then shifts about halfway through to focus on one particular swimmer, Alice, and to ask questions about what gives a life meaning and what will be remembered when we're gone.

Molly

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Published: 13th Jul '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

Garden Physic cover

Garden Physic

Sylvia Legaris' Garden Physic dives into the world of plants, creating a vivid, earthy and playful collection of poetry. Rekindling and emphasising the relationship and connection between humankind and plants, the healing and nourishing properties, and the physical space of gardens, this is a delightful read throughout spring and summer.

Kira

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Published: 7th Apr '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £10.99

Maud Martha (Faber Editions) cover

Maud Martha (Faber Editions)

This luminous little book feels like a magical artifact. Written as a series of vignettes, it follows the childhood and early adulthood of Maud Martha Brown, an African-American woman born in Chicago in the early 20th century. From its opening paragraph to its final pages it creates an alchemy with the mundane - dandelions, crowded apartments, small sharply-felt sorrows and everyday moments of euphoria and rage.

Amos

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Published: 5th May '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99

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On Connection

At a time when we can choose to create thousands of different connections with people every day, Tempest has dug beneath the surface to reveal the importance of sincere, creative connections in our lives, no matter how big or small. Although a personal meditation on their own career and experiences, I feel like there are many universal and moving points to take away from this book. A gem!

Niamh

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Published: 17th Mar '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

Simple Passion cover

Simple Passion

In less than 50 pages, Ernaux succeeds in leaving a huge mark with this force of a book. As she explains, this is not intended to be a story of an affair, but rather a record of her all encompassing feelings, in all their mess and beauty.

Niamh

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Published: 22nd Dec '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £7.99

BFFs cover

BFFs

Another gem from the Inklings Series. This is a pocket sized celebration of female friendship and importantly serves as a reminder that these relationships can be just as influential, consuming and definitely as valuable as romantic relationships. Including some excellent examples from pop culture, it’ll make you want to call/text/hug all the important women in your life.

Niamh

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Published: 9th Mar '23

Format: Paperback

Price: £7.50

Rizzio cover

Rizzio

Following the night of David Rizzio's murder, Mina creates a breathtakingly tense atmosphere in such succint prose that examines themes of love, power dynamics and politics. A true masterclass in historical fiction.

Selena

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Published: 3rd Feb '22

Format: Paperback

Price: £8.99

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A Sunday in Ville-d'Avray

In Dominique Barbéris' atmospheric and mysterious novel A Sunday in Ville d'Avray (translated from the French by John Cullen), a woman relates a surprising episode from her past to her sister, confessing her encounter with an enigmatic man. The author conjures up a peculiar sense of latency and melancholia, the changing light on a late summer afternoon, the quiet of bourgeois suburban life, suffusing the mundane with mystery and meaning. Short and evocative, it is the perfect read on a Sunday afternoon...

Alice

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Published: 5th Aug '21

Format: Paperback

Price: £9.99