5 Classic Books You Should Read This Summer

Vacations, warmer weather, beach days and barefoot lifestyle: Summer is a great time to catch up on reading. Most book-lovers picture sitting by the pool with a racy paperback or catching up on that pile of bestsellers collected over the year--not curling up with War and Peace. Classics are for the school room, right?

The term "classic" often conjures an image of sitting for hours in a library, trudging through dense prose to find some profound, hidden meaning. However, some of the most beloved novels in history are not only enjoyable to read, but are bona fide page-turners. After all, they became "classics" for a reason: millions of people have read, and loved, them. If you haven't read any of the following classic novels, this summer is a great time to experience them.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Romance, English, 1818

What would summer be without a good romance novel? While Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the best known of Austen's novels, Persuasion, her last completed novel and published posthumously, distinguishes itself with a plot and characters just slightly different from Austen's other novels. In Persuasion, the heroine has already met and fallen in love with her hero; but because of her family's disapproval in the man's social standing, she ends the engagement and comes to deeply regret the decision. When her lost love returns, now a self-made man, will the two reconnect or has she lost him forever?

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Adventure, French, 1844

Edmond Dantès is a nineteen-year-old sailor, recently promoted to captain of his own ship and eager to marry his true love, Mercédès. But on the day of his wedding, Edmond is framed by jealous enemies, arrested for treason, and sent to lifelong imprisonment on the island fortress Château d'If. In prison, Edmond befriends a priest named Faria, who educates him, shares his plan for escape, and tells him the story of a vast fortune hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. After fourteen years of unjust imprisonment, Edmond does escape. Can he find the fortune? Can he return to his beloved Mercédès? Can he take revenge on his enemies?

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Mystery/Suspense, English, 1939

This novel, one of the few to not feature Christie's famous detectives Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, has the premise of a classic horror movie. Ten people are invited to a remote island under mysterious circumstances and, one by one, are murdered by an unknown entity. Right from the start, the group learns that each person is responsible for murder, but was never caught. Who has brought them to the island to see that justice is done? And will anyone survive?

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Crime/Drama, American, 1960

Themes of racial injustice and the trials of growing up make this novel a classic for young readers, as well as adults. Narrated by six-year-old Scout Finch, a young girl living with her older brother Jem and widowed father Atticus, the novel is set in a tiny Alabama town during the Great Depression. Atticus, a lawyer, is appointed to defend a black man accused of raping a young white woman, and Scout and Jem must deal with the backlash from town's residents, including taunting from the other kids at school and an intended lynching.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Comedy, American, 1980

Set in New Orleans in the early 1960s, this novel follows the adventures of the eccentric, slovenly, but intelligent, Ignatius J. Reilly and a cast of colorful characters in the French Quarter. Ignatius's mother, with whom he still lives, crashes her car and forces Ignatius to find a job to help pay for the damage. The story follows Ignatius through several hilarious situations, including employment as a pirate-costumed hot dog vendor. Foremost in the novel are the vivid characters and bumbling efforts of Ignatius, especially as he attempts to leave town before a former boss can sue him for libel or his own mother can have him committed.