The Old Man and the Sea

Santiago has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. On the eighty-fifth he sails far out into the Gulf Stream and hooks a giant marlin that tows his skiff for days. The struggle becomes a test of body and will.

Hemingway's plain, pared-back prose suits the subject. There is almost no plot beyond the fight, and yet every sentence carries dignity. The boy Manolin offers a counterpoint of tenderness and the old man's talk to the fish makes the isolation feel intimate rather than lonely.

It is a book about pride, endurance and the idea that a man can be destroyed but not defeated. At barely over a hundred pages, it is one of the best short introductions to Hemingway.