When we think of "beach reads," we often think of romance novels, thrillers, or cosy mysteries. I'm here to convince you that the gorgeous prose of a classic novel can be just as relaxing. Whether you're looking for beautiful writing (hello, Virginia Woolf), thought-provoking stories (hello, Sylvia Plath), or simply an amazing plot (hello, Daphne du Maurier), I'm here to help you find the perfect classic for you.
Gorgeous writing
1.
The Waves
by Virginia Woolf
The Waves is an astonishingly beautiful and poetic novel. It begins with six children playing in a garden by the sea and follows their lives as they grow up and experience friendship, love and grief at the death of their beloved friend Percival.
Weaving together soliloquies from the novel's six characters, Woolf delicately and expertly explores universal concepts such as individuality, the self, and community. A novel still as poignant today as it was when written.
2.
Brontë: selecter poems
by Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë
These poems offer glimpses of the joys and sorrows of the Brontes and are a beautifully compelling introduction to their writing and lives.
3.
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf
To the Lighthouse is at once a vivid impressionistic depiction of a family, the Ramseys, whose annual summer holiday in Scotland falls under the shadow of war, and a meditation on marriage, on parenthood and childhood, on grief, tyranny and bitterness. The novel's use of stream of consciousness, reminiscence and shifting perspectives gives it an intimate, poetic essence, and at the time of publication in 1927 it represented an utter rejection of all that had gone before.
Thought provoking
4.
The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath
Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esthers vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances . . . the Bell Jar, Sylvia Plaths only novel, is partially based on Plaths own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, and has sold millions of copies worldwide.
5.
The Beauty Myth
by Naomi Wolf
Every day, women around the world are confronted with a dilemma - how to look. In a society embroiled in a cult of female beauty and youthfulness, pressure on women to conform physically is constant and all-pervading. In this shortened edition you will find the essence of Wolf's groundbreaking book.
It is a radical, gripping and frank expose of the tyranny of the beauty myth, its oppressive function and the destructive obsession it engenders.
6.
Animal Farm
by George Orwell
A group of farmyard animals, led by the pigs, overthrow their human masters. Their revolution is inspired by high ideals: the farm will be run in the interests of its animals with no more slaughtering, plenty of food for all and comfort in retirement. But when Napoleon the pig takes command, he quickly corrupts their principles, creating a new tyranny worse than the old.
7.
Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni's curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella's return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.
Caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality, David struggles for self-knowledge. With sharp, probing insight, Giovanni's Room tells an impassioned, deeply moving story that lays bare the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
Great plot
8.
Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier
On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband's home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow.
9.
Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo is the greatest wrestler and warrior alive, and his fame spreads throughout West Africa like a bush-fire. But when he accidentally kills a clansman, things begin to fall apart. Then Okonkwo returns from exile to find missionaries and colonial governors have arrived in the village.
10.
The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende
As a girl, Clara del Valle can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future.
Set in an unnamed Latin American country over three generations, The House of the Spirits is a magnificent epic of a proud and passionate family, secret loves and violent revolution.
