There are countless movies to watch and parties to attend but if you are one who prefers to dial down for some peace and quiet, here are a few classic reads that you should devote your attention to this summer.

‘A Month in the Country’ by J.L. Carr

With its sleepy depictions of rural England, A Month in the Country provides a perfectly short read for lazing on the beach. The novel follows |Tom Birkin, World War 1 veteran, and recent divorcee, through his adventure one summer in Oxgodby as he navigates a peaceful job in restoring a medieval church mural. Through the protagonist’s torturous experiences from the war to marital neglect, we watch as Birkin begins to find peace within himself, and are infinitely reminded of the inseparability of joy and pain, and that more importantly, that with the absence of one, the other may never be felt to its fullest degree. Though the protagonist himself makes little mention of his own faith, religious symbolism is prevalent throughout the novel in the form of judgement, and the truth of right and wrong. The novel’s gentle and hazy atmosphere underlines its more solemn themes, while allowing it to remain an uncomplicated read, making it the perfect book for summer.

‘Lord of the Flies’, by William Golding

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, expresses the nature of mankind in its own self destruction, even engendered through the innocence of children. The novel follows a group of adolescent schoolboys who’s aeroplane (intending to deliver them to safety from the tragedy of war) when they crash upon a deserted island, and inevitably inflict their own savagery unto each other, in the midst of anarchy and lacking stability of a civil society.

‘Beautiful Losers’, by Leonard Cohen

Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen’s final novel before pursuing a career in music, is a complex novel revolving around the love triangle among an unnamed narrator, his wife, Edith, and his elusive friend, referred to as ‘F’, as they are united by their fascination with the 17-th century Mohawk Saint, Catherine Tekakwitha. The novel is divided into three novelettes: the first, named ‘The History of Them All’, is narrated by the unnamed narrator; the second is ‘A Long Letter From F’; and the third, is narrated by an unknown third party, named, ‘Beautiful Losers: An Epilogue in the Third Person’. The novel seeks to captivate the mystic, narcotic-crazed radicalism emblematic of Canada in the 1960’s, and the novel is noted for its excessive allusion to raunchy innuendo. Cohen himself indulged in amphetamines during the 16-month period of the novel’s writing, in an effort towards channelling his creativity into its creation, which may serve as the source for the densely packed imagery and symbolism in the novel. The novel reflects the political and social zeitgeist of the 1960s, lauded by CBC as “one of the most radical and extraordinary works of fiction ever published in Canada”.

‘Fahrenheit 451’, by Ray Bradbury

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s own fears regarding the potential fate of literature are recognised. Inspired by the book burnings of Nazi Germany, and the widespread ideological repression of the Soviet Union, and in later years, described the book as a commentary on the effects of mass media’s effects of slowly eroding the attention spans of its consumers, resulting in the reduction of interest in reading literature. The novel itself follows firefighter Guy Montag, who’s job is to start fires, as opposed to putting them out, in an effort to destroy outlawed books. Montag realises the insanity of his work as he observes the listless, zombie-like behaviour of his wife, and friends who are all-consumed in the distractions of