I’m going to nominate Stephen Leacock’s “
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town”. It’s been on my TBR for over 50 years, so I don’t know first hand whether it can stand the test of time. However, I thought this may be an ideal time to try it. (136 pages).
GrannyGrump of MobileRead:
“Stephen Leacock was a Canadian educator, political scientist, writer, and humorist. Between 1911 and 1925 he was so well-known as the world’s greatest humorist that it was said more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada.”
From Wikipedia
“ Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town is a sequence of stories by Stephen Leacock, first published in 1912. It is generally considered to be one of the most enduring classics of Canadian humorous literature. The fictional setting for these stories is Mariposa, a small town on the shore of Lake Wissanotti. Although drawn from his experiences in Orillia, Ontario, Leacock notes: "Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them."
This work has remained popular for its universal appeal. Many of the characters, though modelled on townspeople of Orillia, are small town archetypes. Their shortcomings and weaknesses are presented in a humorous but affectionate way. “
It’s in the public domain, and on overdrive. It’s also in our own library, as part of an omnibus collection: Leacock, Stephen: Northern Light (collected works). v1. 17 Apr 2017