10 Classic Novels To Get You Into That Summer Mood

Whether you're planning on taking a beach break this summer or just want to unwind with a good read – as you blast the air conditioning in your room – why not revisit some of the most classical novels to kick-up that good old nostalgia? 

With the few months that we have left of summer, there are so many good reads for the lazy days ahead. 

Books that involve the wondrous season of summer, novels that sneak up on you with unnerving twists and turns, or just stories that take you back to your childhood days. 

Here are 10 classic books that will definitely stir up those summer emotions. 

#10: The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

If you ever wondered where authors like Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel got their inspiration from, it was all thanks to Susann’s instant bestseller, The Valley of the Dolls. Susann’s novel is a classic in the sense that it is the original “trashy" novel. Published in 1966, The Valley of the Dolls tells the story about the friendship between three women, the perils and rewards of fame, and drugs. A lot of drugs. The novel spans over twenty years, from 1945 to 1965. Set in New York City, Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara, and Jennifer North become fast friends and roommates. The pages are jam-packed with sex, lies, scandals and of course, DOLLS. “Dolls” are the delightfully euphemistic name give to the pills that help all three of the women deal with the horrific messes that each of their lives ultimately become. While the novel is woefully short on style and character development, it nonetheless delivers an intriguing plot.  

#9: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Yes. It’s that deliciously dirty novel that you’ve had your eye on all year long. But if you haven’t gotten around to reading it – let alone never even heard someone explain the plot to you – you’re in for an unconventional story. After spending many years on the Riviera, Humbert Humbert comes to the United States and takes up room and board in a house belonging to a widow in a sleepy, suburban New England town. He becomes instantly infatuated with the widow’s twelve-year-old daughter Dolores (AKA Lolita) and falls in love with her. Oh, and this guy Humbert, is a 37-year-old man. While the story of Lolita is just as distasteful as its narrator, the language in the novel triumphs over the shocking content and gives it shades of beauty that perhaps it does not deserve. Work your way past the sex and the disturbing descriptions, and you yourself might fall victim to Humbert’s enchanting form of literary allusions and linguistic patterns.

#8: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

Teenage torment gets redefined in Eugenides’s classic, The Virgin Suicides. Five sisters are held like prisoners in their house by their domineering, repressive mother. As the sisters begin to the waste away in hopelessness and isolation, they eventually kill themselves. Their suicide sparks a group of teenage boys who end up spending the rest of their lives trying to figure out what happened to the girls. Part coming-of-age story and party tragedy, Eugenides expands his story to detail the decline of the American dream and the facade of the family nucleus in a 1970’s suburban community.     

#7: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Capote’s spine-tingling tale tells the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. While the book is written as if it were a novel – complete with re-created dialogue – the genius behind the storytelling in In Cold Blood resides with the author himself. Capote went out of his way to understand this brutal crime. He spent the next six years interviewing everyone involved in the investigation, even committing many hours to sitting down with the killers and developing a personal relationship with them. This beautifully-written true page-turner is chalk-full of vivid characterization and gorgeous prose. More so, the novel also forces the reader to wonder who to trust. While Capote doesn’t give you the answer in his book, he does get inside the minds of the two murderers and and tries to figure out what primarily drove them to kill.

#6: Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Taking a break from the jolly sunshine and childhood innocence, Lord of the Flies will make you feel anything but cheerful while you’re out tanning by the beach. After surviving a plane crash in the Pacific Ocean, a group of schoolboys find themselves on a desert island and struggle to survive. However, with the absence of adults under the baking sun, the boys descend into madness. As the heat, lack of authority and temptation devour them, the boy’s childish games turn into a disturbing, psychological story. While their boyhood progresses from well-behaved orderly children to bloodthirsty hunters, Golding portrays the boy’s loss of innocence from within, as each of the boys accepts the savagery that had always existed within them.

#5: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Both of Mark Twain’s classic novels include carefree summers full of mischief, adventures and friendships. Thanks to the endlessly funny hijinks of the characters, Tom and Huck, Twain makes sure that his stories are packed with excitement. In The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom is the pinnacle of naughty boys, driving his Aunt Polly insane with punishments for Tom up the wazoo. But there is also a caring side to Tom. He becomes a hopeless romantic when he falls in love with the Judge’s daughter, Becky Thatcher. As Tom continues with his carefree life he suddenly becomes a witness to a murder, shifting his story into an entirely darker realm. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a kind of sequel to the Tom Sawyer saga. While the majority of the story tells Huck’s backstory about his wino of a father, “Pap,” the real story is Huck’s adventure with Jim, a slave on the lam who strikes up a friendship with Huck. Tom and Huck’s stories are invested with so much nostalgia and so much feelings of youth and it transcends boundaries of youth and adulthood. If you could get past the dated language and the Twain-geared phonetic dialogue, you can appreciate how both novels detail the descriptions of the lazy summer days in the Deep South.

#4: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Nothing really captures the fleeting feeling of summer than that of the pages of Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller. Meet Tom Ripley, an unhappy orphan who was raised by his icy tumultuous aunt. Now at the age of 23, and living in New York City, Tom is just trying to get through life via casual extortion. That is until he’s approached by the wealthy Herbert Greenleaf, father of an acquaintance, Dickie. Greenleaf is looking for someone who might persuade his son to return home from the bohemian life he’s been leading in the Italian village of Mongibello, and Tom seizes the opportunity. But what he finds when locates Dickie is something he hadn’t expected: a glimpse of the privileged existence he’s always dreamed of. Highsmith’s descriptions of Italy feel like an endless summer. That is until, Tom finds himself envious of Dickie’s life and schemes to steal it for himself. 

#3: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson 

​There is no better book that has perfected the beach book formula than Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Serving up a tale gripping enough to be sampled from a hammock or a lounge chair, Treasure Island (if you’d never seen Muppet Treasure Island) tells the story of young Jim Hawkins who finds a map to an island where the pirate Flint has buried a vast treasure. Jim, along with the help of the local physician and the district squire set voyage to the island, only to discover that the majority of the crew on the ship are pirates who have planned a mutiny. Stevenson’s whimsical tale also weaves in a complex coming-of-age story with evil, yet also likable characters. His book reminds us that villains are just people who chose a different route to get what they want. 

#2: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

If you’re looking for another tale under the hot southern sun, look no further than Harper Lee’s tour de force of a novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. While this book should’ve been on some – if not all – of your high school summer reading lists, TKAM never ceases to grow boring nor obsolete. With an exciting but thought-provoking plot and a cast of memorable characters, there’s a reason why this novel has earned its spot in the hearts of readers. At the beginning of the novel, Scout is an innocent, good-hearted five-year-old child who has no experience with the evils of the world. But when her father, Atticus Finch (a respected lawyer in their hometown of Maycomb, Alabama) defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, Scout’s perspective on life develops from that of an innocent child into that of a near grown-up.

#1: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Is there any other book that captures summer in New York more accurately than The Great Gatsby? Not to mention that all of the events in the book take place during a sweltering summer in the 1920’s. Add that with prohibition, doomed love and wild, unimaginable parties, you've got yourself a summer read you won’t soon forget. When midwest native Nick Carraway arrives to New York City to spend the summer with his cousin, Daisy and her philandering husband, Tom Buchanan, he finds his neighbor to be none other than millionaire, Jay Gatsby. Thus, Nick becomes drawn into the captivating world of wealthy and attending glitzy parties. But the longer he stays with Gatsby, the more he becomes a witness to the upper-class’s illusions of deceit. 

​Keep it cool (and classy) this summer!