Five Books To Elevate Your Summer Reading
Classics, but make them quick
Welcome to Five Books For, a newsletter for people who love great stories. I’m so happy you’re here.
I know that summer reading lists often focus on beach reads, often popular romances or thrillers, and while I love those sort of books when I’m in the mood for them, I often crave something more literary. I know that lots of people think that classics are stuffy or boring, and while I don’t personally find that to be the case, it’s true that many of them are longer than contemporary books and often have a less accessible writing style.
With that in mind, I wanted to recommend some shorter classics which work well if you’re struggling for time because of school holidays, or simply don’t have a lot of energy to read right now - especially if you’re caught in a heatwave, like my family back in the UK have been recently. Think of it as a list of alternative beach reads, although really only one of them is at all summery and none of them are especially cheerful. But that’s not a bad thing, I promise! These are some of the best books you could ever wish to read.
These books are also perfect for anyone who wants to dip a toe into the classics without having to start War & Peace (although W&P is definitely worth reading at some point!) - these are all more accessible in terms of language as well as in terms of length. There is a variety in genre and style, but they’re all great reads.
As ever, I hope you find something new to surprise and delight you.
Other writing
I’ve just started writing a new monthly column over at Global Comment called Late To The Movies. I’ve never been much of a movie person (too busy reading) but I’ve decided to try and educate myself about cinema, starting from the beginning of cinema history and working forwards.
The first installment is already up and I’d love it if you would check it out.
Okay, let’s dive in!
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
“Cynicism always enchanted me by producing a delicious feeling of self-assurance and of being in league with myself.”
So what’s it about? Cécile is seventeen, and it’s summer on the French Riviera. Cécile has been brought up by her idle and hedonistic father, Raymond, whose rather young mistress Elsa is currently staying with them. Life is carefree and indulgent and Cécile revels in the lack of structure and responsibilities, until Raymond’s old flame Anne arrives. Anne is the opposite of Elsa: cultured, intelligent and serious, and she soon displaces Elsa in Raymond’s affections. Before long, Cécile finds herself bridling at the changes Anne is making and she decides to take matters into her own hands and manipulate events to her favour - with unexpectedly shocking consequences.
What’s great about it? Bonjour Tristesse was Françoise Sagan’s debut novel, written when she was just eighteen. When it was released in 1954 it caused a scandal even in France - its frank treatment of adolescence, desire, and moral ambiguity was considered shocking at the time, although it quickly became a modern classic of French literature.
It’s short, at under 150 pages, and it exudes summer heat: everything about it is langourous, decadent and soaked in sunshine. Cécile is spoiled but clever, and she makes a compelling narrator. Her voice is worldly and cynical but also full of teenage ennui. There’s a clever tension between what she tells us directly and what we can see unfolding which keeps you wanting to turn the pages. She’s emotionally immature even though she’s older than her years in other ways - or at least likes to believe that she is. Sagan’s prose is elegant and restrained, which gives the eventual emotional blow more weight.
This is a book which perfectly captures the experience of being a teenager in the summer: not quite an adult, with weeks of sunshine spooling out ahead of you as you find yourself chafing against the restrictions of study and learning what power you hold. Knowing that Sagan was herself a teenager when it was written makes it all the more impressive: it may have made the feelings of that age easier and more immediate for her to capture but the writing is beautiful and far more mature than you might expect from an eighteen year old.
Give it a try if: you love books with female narrators who don’t care about being liked; you love books set in France; you feel like a summery read; you’re interested in books that tackle questions of morality and philosophy; you love books which are cool.
Animal Farm by George Orwell
“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
So what’s it about? At less than 140 pages, this brilliantly sharp political satire is delightfully easy to read. A group of farm animals, led by the pigs, tire of their human farmer and stage a revolution, hoping to create a society where animals can be equal, free, and happy. Before long, however, corruption creeps in and the animals find themselves living in a dictatorship.
What’s great about it? Orwell’s writing here is witty and elegant and the book is as ironic as it comes. The allegory, for the Russian Revolution and Stalin’s rise to power, is beautifully done - a complex and multilayered political situation boiled down to a tale about farmyard animals which is both engaging and entertaining.
While the book is rooted in specific historical events, the themes it explores are universal: the nature of power, corruption, the ways in which ideals can be manipulated or lost. Despite being written in 1945, it’s still remarkably relevant to our current times.
Give it a try if: you love clever books that are also entertaining; you love satire; you’re interested in politics or history; you love fables.
The Age Of Innocence by Edith Wharton
“Archer had always been inclined to think that chance and circumstance played a small part in shaping people’s lots compared with their innate tendency to have things happen to them.”
So what’s it about? It’s the Gilded Age in New York City and Newland Archer has just announced his engagement to the beautiful, naive, and socially appropriate May Welland. At first, Newland is delighted with the match he’s made but when May’s cousin Countess Ellen Olenska arrives from Europe, he finds himself falling in love with her instead. Ellen is considered scandalous by New York society, partly for leaving her marriage and partly for having lived in Europe and thereby gained various unconventional habits.
Newland and Ellen struggle against their mutual attraction and Newland soon finds out that May is not as naive and innocent as he first assumed, but is in fact a shrewd and clever manipulator. Will Newland risk everything for true love, or will he settle for a conventional and socially acceptable life?
What’s great about it? This is a bit longer than my other recommendations this month but it’s not a long book by any stretch, at around 250 pages. However, it’s a pretty quick read as the prose is accessible and the tension keeps you turning the pages to find out what will happen to Newland, May and Ellen.
One of the things I loved most about it was how Wharton manages to show both the positive values of NY society - the emphasis on loyalty, decency and duty - while also showing how suffocating and rigid it was. It’s a fine line to tread and she does it perfectly, all the while creating characters who are complex and believably human in both their strengths and their faults. This makes the book much more emotionally realistic - after all, when is life ever black and white? - and thought-provoking.
At its heart, this is really a novel about internal conflict: how do we choose between what our heart wants, versus what our head tells us is the right thing to do? Can you build a happy life for yourself if you have to build it on top of destruction, whether of the framework you used to live by or of your own broken heart?
Wharton’s prose is elegant and beautiful and she writes incredible characters. May in particular is gradually revealed to be quite different to our (and Newland’s) first impressions as the story progresses: she must be one of the most underestimated characters in literature, certainly that I’ve come across. This is another book which doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s not simply tragic: rather, it’s much more nuanced and complex and will leave you thinking about it long after you finish the book.
Give it a try if: you love beautiful, elegant prose; you love books which look at a specific time and place; you’re curious about high society in Gilded Age New York; you like historical fiction; you love complex characters with lots of depth; you love female characters who are underestimated; you love books with psychological complexity which explore philosophical questions; you like books which make you think and especially those which have endings that stay with you.
N.B. I read this with
as part of her readalong (which I believe is still accessible to paid subscribers) and I wholeheartedly recommend it - I got so much more from the experience of reading it closely along with Haley, whose expertise is amazing, and the rest of the group. You can find more info at Haley’s Substack here: Closely Reading.Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck
“As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”
So what’s it about? This is the story of two friends, Lennie and George, who are migrant workers during the Great Depression. They dream of one day owning their own farm. Lennie has an intellectual disability but enormous physical strength, which repeatedly gets him into trouble, creating a dynamic where George acts as his protector and caretaker. They eventually find work on a ranch and even make a new friend, Candy, who shares their dream of farm ownership. However, Lennie and George soon find themselves in a tragic situation when events take an unexpected turn.
What’s great about it? This isn’t the book to read if you want something with a happy ending but it is deeply moving and beautifully written. Steinbeck explores the tension between aspiration and reality in Depression-era America deftly and in a very human way.
The friendship between George and Lennie is surely one of the all-time most moving relationships in literature. The connection they share provides them with love and meaning even in the most difficult of circumstances, which makes the ending of the book all the sadder. It’s astonishing how Steinbeck manages to create such perfectly drawn characters in so few pages - reading it is like a masterclass in characterisation. The book also provides an acute social commentary although it never feels preachy, because you care so deeply for the characters and their stories. And like all great books, it doesn’t serve up easy answers to the moral dilemmas it explores but instead allows the reader to experience the impossible choice and the brutality of mercy right along with George at the end.
Give it a try if: you’re in the mood to have your heart broken; you love books about friendship; you love books which explore moral and social issues without sacrificing story or character; you’re interested in the Great Depression; you like historical fiction; you want to read one of the all-time greatest works of literature but would prefer to start somewhere accessible.
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
“There was something queer about that gentleman— something that gave a man a turn— I don’t know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: that you felt in your marrow kind of cold and thin.”
So what’s it about? Told from the perspective of Mr. Utterson, a respected lawyer and friend of Dr. Henry Jekyll, this is the story of how Dr. Jekyll stumbles upon a potion that allows him to transform into Dr. Hyde, a smaller, younger man who embodies all of his evil impulses and who experiences no moral constraints - and the deadly consequences that ensue. It’s told as a mystery, with clues carefully placed as the story progresses until we reach the denouement, where Utterson realises that his friend Jekyll and the evil Hyde are in fact one and the same.
What’s great about it? At around 80 pages, this truly is a book you can easily read in one sitting, and it’s a great way to spend an afternoon. The description in this book is wonderful - I found myself highlighting sentences frequently as I was reading, and I loved the very correct and proper manners of all of the characters. It’s a very British book, and not just because of the London setting, but in a more intangible way too.
We all know the story of course, but reading it is a lot of fun. It is probably the definitive piece of literature on the dual nature of good and evil and its psychological insights are acute, even though it was written long before modern psychology was invented. It’s also a very Victorian book, not only in it’s subject matter or preoccupations but also in style and tone, which makes it a real pleasure to read if you enjoy Victorian literature more generally. It reads like a mystery and I can see that if you came to it not knowing that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person (although I imagine you’d have to live under a pretty huge rock to not have absorbed that knowledge one way or another) then the mystery would be both spooky and satisfying. Of course it’s such a well-known story that it’s difficult to read as a mystery but even so it’s fun to spot the clues as you progress.
This is also a book with incredible atmosphere: there’s London fog, dark shadowy streets with the sense of hidden dangers lurking, and a secretive laboratory. The Gothic atmosphere becomes almost as character in its own right.
Give it a try if: you love mystery stories; you love stories rich in atmosphere; you love Victorian literature; you love novels that explore morality and the nature of good and evil; you love Gothic literature; you love books set in London; you love books which have become archetypal parts of our culture.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you found something good to read here. As ever, I’d love to hear if you’ve read and loved (or even hated) any of the books here, and which ones you’d add to the list. You can reply directly to this email or leave a comment by clicking the button below.
Join me next time for the fun stuff edition, where I’ll share an extra recommendation, a poem and a few great links to read. I also have a brilliant recommendation for you over at my Global Comment Great Adaptations column later in the month - I’ll share the link in the next edition so stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, I wish you happy reading,
Kate
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Yes! 'Bonjour Tristesse' is the perfect summer book!