Reading is fundamental, and no genre is more beloved in literature than fantasy. Indeed, nearly everyone loves a great fantasy tale, no matter the approach the author takes. Heroic knights going on quests to save the realm, magic coming into our world to wreak havoc, dark lands where danger lurks in every corner — you name it, and fantasy has it.
However, taking on a new book is a massive commitment, especially because many fantasy sagas go well past the 500-page threshold to properly tell their story. If you’re short on time and want a story that you can start and finish in a weekend, then look no further than the gems on this list. These fantasy books are ideal for a weekend read, delivering complete and riveting stories that you can pick up on a Saturday afternoon and put down before Sunday ends.
‘The Hobbit’ (1937)
Image via George Allen & Unwin
Few books in fantasy history are as foundational, groundbreaking, or influential as J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. The story is well-known by now: homely hobbit Bilbo Baggins joins the wizard Gandalf and the dwarves from Thorin’s Company to venture out of his comfortable shire and journey across Middle-earth on a quest to retake the dwarves’ land and treasure from the dragon Smaug.
Today, The Hobbit might be perhaps eclipsed by the wild and universal acclaim of its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. Still, this tale is dripping with cozy charm and adventure that makes it a spectacular piece of fiction, one that everyone should read before kicking the bucket. Tolkien’s worldbuilding is fascinating but accessible, and Bilbo is one of literature’s most spirited and engaging heroes. Put him in a classic hero’s journey about maturity and the dangers of greed, and you have a delightful work of fantasy that has rightfully stood the test of time as one of literature’s greatest treasures. Even better, The Hobbit is usually about 300 pages long, making it ideal for a weekend read.
COLLIDER
Middle-earth
Personality Quiz
Collider/ Movies/ The Lord of the Rings/ Which Race Do You Belong To
Ten Questions · Five Peoples Which Lord of the Rings Race Do You Belong To? Hobbit · Elf · Dwarf · Man · Orc
Middle-earth is home to many peoples: the courageous, the ancient, the stubborn, the ambitious and the wretched. Ten questions will determine which race truly claims your soul. The answer may surprise you, or it may confirm what you already suspected.
The Five Peoples
🌿Hobbit
🌟Elf
🪓Dwarf
⚔Man
💀Orc
Stage 1 of 10Comfort
What does your ideal day look like? How we rest reveals as much as how we fight.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 2 of 10Time
How do you feel about the passing of time? Our relationship with mortality shapes everything we value.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 3 of 10Instinct
Danger is approaching. Your first instinct is to: Fight, flight, or something in between.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 4 of 10Treasure
You stumble upon a great treasure. What do you feel? What we desire, and what we do about it, is the true test.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 5 of 10Community
How important is community and belonging to you? No race of Middle-earth is truly alone, but some prefer it that way.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 6 of 10Ambition
How ambitious are you, honestly? Ambition is neither virtue nor vice. It depends entirely on what you want.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 7 of 10Nature
Where do you feel most at home in the natural world? Middle-earth is vast, and every race has its place within it.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 8 of 10Strength
What kind of strength do you most respect? Every race defines strength differently, and they are all at least a little right.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 9 of 10Legacy
What do you want to leave behind when you are gone? Legacy is the story we tell ourselves about why any of this matters.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Stage 10 of 10Truth
Be honest. What do you want most out of life? The truest question always comes last.
Press 1 to 5 to choose
Middle-earth Has Spoken You Belong To
A tie. You walk between two peoples.
🌿 The Hobbits The Shire-folk Heroism does not require ambition, and you are the proof.
You are, at your core, a creature of comfort, community and quiet joy, and there is nothing small about that. Hobbits are proof that heroism does not require ambition, that the bravest heart can beat inside the most unassuming chest. You value good food, warm hearths, close friends and a world that stays largely untroubled by dark lords and quests. When adventure does find you, and it will, you rise to it not because you sought it but because the people you love needed you to. That is not ordinary. That is the rarest kind of courage in all of Middle-earth.
LoyalGroundedUnassumingBraver Than You Look
🌟 The Elves The Firstborn They mistake your depth for distance.
Ancient, graceful, and carrying a weight of memory most mortals cannot fathom, you are one of the Elves. You see the world in its fullness: its beauty, its impermanence, the unbearable ache of watching everything you love eventually fade. You pursue perfection not from pride but because excellence is how you honour the time you have been given. Others may see you as remote or melancholy. They are not wrong, exactly. But they mistake depth for distance. You feel everything, which is precisely why you have learned to carry it so quietly.
AncientExactingObservantMelancholy
🪓 The Dwarves The Stone-born Anything worth doing is worth doing properly.
Stubborn, proud, fiercely loyal and possessed of a work ethic that would exhaust most other races before breakfast, you are Dwarf-kind through and through. You do not ask for approval and you do not offer it cheaply. Your loyalty, once given, is given for life. Your grudges last longer. You love deeply and defend ferociously, and the things you build, with your hands and your sweat and generations of accumulated craft, are made to last. Not for glory. Because anything worth doing is worth doing properly, and you have never once done anything by half measures.
StubbornLoyalExactingImmovable
⚔ The Race of Men The Mortal Kind You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you.
Mortal, ambitious, flawed and magnificent, you belong to the most complicated race in Middle-earth, and that complexity is your greatest strength. Men are capable of cowardice and extraordinary bravery, of cruelty and breathtaking sacrifice, sometimes within the same breath. You feel the urgency of your finite years and it drives you. You want to matter. You want to leave something behind. You fall, and you rise, and the rising is what defines you. Tolkien called mortality the Gift of Men, not a curse but a fire that burns bright precisely because it does not burn forever. That fire is you.
AmbitiousMortalDrivenUnfinished
💀 The Orcs The Broken Kind You have made your peace with a world that is not kind.
Brutal, survivalist and contemptuous of anything that cannot defend itself, you answered with the instincts of an Orc, and there is a certain savage honesty in that. You do not dress up your desires in polite language or pretend you want things you do not. You want power, survival, and to never be at the bottom of any hierarchy again. Orcs are not evil by nature. They were made from something that was once good and broken into this shape by forces they did not choose. What remains is fierce, territorial, and deeply aware that the world is not kind. You have made your peace with that. The question is what you do with it.
TerritorialBluntRelentlessUnsentimental
Your Closest Matches
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Quest recorded by COLLIDER Collider.com · Middle-earth
‘Piranesi’ (2020)
Image via Bloomsbury
Now for a novel that is the literary equivalent of short and sweet. Susanna Clarke‘s Piranesi tells the story of the titular character, who lives in a massive structure known only as the House. Every day, Piranesi documents his existence in the seemingly infinite structure, occupied by only two other living people. Piranesi meets twice a week with The Other, who is investigating a “Great and Secret Knowledge” hidden somewhere within the House.
The beauty of Piranesi lies in its creativity and emotional intelligence. Presented as the character’s daily journal entries, the book is tremendously intimate and immersive, with Clarke taking us fully into Piranesi’s head and helping us understand the reality of his situation alongside him. There is a beautiful, surreal quality to the book that is elusive but never off-putting, with the House becoming one of the most singular and changing settings in modern literature. One of the most amazing books of the 2020s, Piranesi is a true jewel, a study on the meaning of reality, what and how we perceive it, and what we ultimately choose to forget. And at just 272 pages, it’s a breeze to read through.
‘Tress of the Emerald Sea’ (2023)
Image via Tor Fantasy
Finally, we end with one of the newest classics from fantasy maestro Brandon Sanderson. A part of the Cosmere, the book is set on the planet Lumar, which has twelve moons, each one raining different spores that create seas of unique colors. Because the spores become explosive upon contact with water, sailing is difficult. The protagonist, Tress, lives on a lonely rock in the Emerald Sea but must venture into the Midnight Sea to rescue her friend from a Sorceress.
Leave it to Sanderson to deliver an enchanting, standalone tale out of nowhere. Tress of the Emerald Sea is The Princess Bridewith a twist, a clever, delightful subversion of the damsel-in-distress trope that never feels forced or contrived. Tress is a classic fantasy protagonist with such a refreshing twist that she becomes wholly unique: she’s selfless, introspective, and resourceful, making her feel so real, like a friend whose adventure you’re relating to. Similarly, the story follows a traditional fairy tale structure but injects so much wit and anachronisms that one can’t help to sail along with it. Yes, it’s 472 pages long, but you’ll barely notice them — that’s just how great this book is.
