How long is it?
272 pages in the Little, Brown Paperbacks 2018 trade paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction
Less
Highly regardedPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 36 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 272 pagesLittle, Brown Paperbacks · 2018
- Reading time
- 5 h 30 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Brisk
- Emotional intensity
- 3 / 5
About 5 h 30 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 11 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Arthur Less, a gay novelist in San Francisco, is approaching fifty when his former boyfriend invites him to his wedding and his publisher rejects his latest manuscript. He accepts a string of literary invitations around the world to avoid attending the ceremony. The journey takes him among writers and academics, but memories of his lovers follow him abroad, along with doubts about whether his career has amounted to much.
Reader notes
Wry and affectionate, the novel alternates comic travel mishaps with quieter passages about aging and lost love. Literary vanity and professional insecurity occupy considerable room alongside the love story, which includes occasional explicit sexual detail between adults.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Conversational · Direct · Lyrical · Witty
- Tone
- Humorous · Satirical · Warm · Wistful
- Structure
- Episodic · Linear
- Driven by
- Character · Relationships · Voice
- Point of view
- Mixed viewpoints
- Setting
- North America, Europe, North Africa, India, and Japan · San Francisco
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 3 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Aging
- Art and creativity
- Identity
- Love
- Transformation
- Work
Content notes
- Violence
- None
- Sexual content
- Strong
- Swearing
- Mild
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- None
- Self-harm or suicide
- None
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018
- Lambda Literary Awards finalist, 2018
- Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist, 2018
- Pulitzer Prize — Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018
Series and reading order
The Arthur Less Books
- 1Less · This book · 2017
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Little, Brown Paperbacks · 2018 · Trade Paperback. ISBN 9780316316132.
What is the order of books in The Arthur Less Books?
1. Less.
How long does it take to read Less?
About 5 hours 30 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 272-page Little, Brown Paperbacks edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Andrew Sean Greer
Andrew Sean Greer is an American novelist and short story writer who often makes time and displacement do structural work. The Confessions of Max Tivoli follows a man aging backward, while The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells moves its protagonist among three eras. These devices place identity and intimacy under the pressure of altered chronology. In his comic fiction, embarrassment and discomfort generate the humor, with the traveler kept as the joke’s target. Less sends an anxious novelist through an international itinerary that repeatedly exposes the failed escape beneath each new engagement. In Less Is Lost, Freddy Pelu’s narration creates affectionate distance from Arthur Less, allowing mockery without cruelty and keeping tenderness inside the comic design.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Little, Brown Paperbacks
- Publication year
- 2018
- Format
- Trade Paperback
- Pages
- 272
- ISBN
- 9780316316132
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2017
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Literary fiction · Contemporary literary · Comedy · Picaresque · Satire
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 5 (German, English, French, Polish, Unspecified)