" The Minister for Natural Health asked about a stack of extremely slender volumes, and Zhu smiled happily. As a reaction against these endless compendiums, he explained, he had gotten into the habit of buying any books he came across that seemed required by their subject matter to be short, often so short that their titles would scarcely fit on their spines. Thus “Secrets to Successful Marriage,” or “Good Reasons to Have Hope for the Future,” or “Stories About Not Being Afraid of Ghosts. "
― Kim Stanley Robinson , The Years of Rice and Salt