1. "The Return of the Soldier" - Rebecca West

The books I have chosen do not have any particular theme to them. I chose them because they are very short or very easy to just run through. The first of these books that I selected was The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West. The novella is about a soldier who returns to his wife and cousin from World War I with memory loss due to his traumatic experience fighting in the war.

The memory loss takes a heavy toll on the relationships between each character, revealing deep psychological issues with all three characters. The novella is a brilliant dissection of memory, war, gender roles, and the role of character narration in storytelling. The novella is easily under one hundred pages, and it is without a doubt worth the short hours it will take for you to read it.

2. "Passing" - Nella Larson

The next book I would recommend to kill a few hours is Nella Larson's Passing. The novella details the delicate situation of an African American woman who is able to "pass" as a white person. She does this while married to an incredibly racist husband. The whole novella analyzes ideas of identity, conformity, race, and how appearances dictate society's judgment of individuals. The characters are complex, and the ending is left ambiguous enough for anyone to come out with a different interpretation than someone else. It's really easy to blaze through it in an afternoon and I swear you will not regret it.

3. "Carmilla" - J. Sheridan Le Fanu

The last book I'd say you should give a shot is the Gothic vampire novella Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. The story follows the unsettling affair between a wealthy, Austrian girl named Laura and the seductive vampire Carmilla. The novella is one of the first recorded examples of vampires being featured in literary fiction and, next to Dracula, it might be one of the best.

There is a dream-like quality to many of the scenes and images in the novella that enforces an atmosphere of uneasiness all throughout the novella. It's highly effective and very unnerving. In addition to all the stark images in the novella, the book also features one of the first examples of overt lesbianism in a piece of literary fiction. The novella was pretty innovative for its time, and I would say it still holds up today. Try giving the book a read when you're settling in at night and you feel like getting in a good scare before sleep overcomes you.