A one-sitting read is typically the domain of the short story – a form that largely depends on a reader’s pure, unbroken attention. But there is some­thing special about the intensity of beginning and ending an entire book in a single day. Of all my reading experiences, these have been among the most memorable.As a judge for last year’s Booker prize, faced with 153 books and just over six months in which to read them, it was my task to try to turn every novel into one that could be read in a day. While I loved the experience, it wasn’t exactly a recipe for satisfying reading.Booker judging aside, everyone’s time feels squeezed. The Booker prizes recently published research co-authored by the Reading Agency that reported 35% of readers struggle to finish books. The publisher Vintage describes its new collection of “short masterpieces” – by writers including Nella Larsen, Ursula K Le Guin, Toni Morrison and Fyodor Dostoevsky – as books that fit “contemporary reading lives”. And it’s true that if you pick a book of the appropriate dimensions and take the right precautions (phone in another room, don’t answer the door), reading a book in a day becomes a real possibility – particularly with summer holidays coming up.But what to choose? That’s where this list comes in. It’s a personal selection, not a comprehensive one. And I’ve omitted some great but perhaps overfamiliar candidates – Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby, Ethan Frome. But all these books, familiar or not, are worth a day of your time.AssemblyNatasha Brown