What do you do when you've read Jorge Luis Borges' Collected Fictions so many times that you feel a bit like Funes the Memorious? Or when you've thoroughly digested the Argentinean master's Selected Non-Fictions and even bought his poetry volume? For strung-out Borges aficionados, the perfect answer is Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges' literary collaborator and close friend. Bioy Casares knew Borges well enough to write a 1,600-page volume on their friendship and, despite a 15-year age gap, was considered an intellectual peer.

The masterpiece among Bioy Casares' short, intense novels is The Invention of Morel, a book that won raves from Borges (who placed it alongside Franz Kafka's The Trial), was called "perfect" by Octavio Paz, and inspired one of French cinema's most infamous movies, Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Though it was first published in 1940, the book's continuing relevance was recently proven when it was featured on Lost — a cameo many viewers perceive as a key to that TV show's plot.

But that doesn't mean this is a tough tract unfit for quality beach time. To start, Morel is a slim volume, and its detective-style plot and taut pacing might lead to uneven tanning. The story concerns a reclusive man who has absconded to a desert island. He's perfectly happy in his humid, mosquito-ridden home until people suddenly show up. Completely oblivious to him, these newcomers throw wild parties every night. The narrator wants them gone — until he falls in love with one of the women. And yet, when he finally gets up the nerve to declare his affections, there's a slight hitch: apparently she literally doesn't know he exists. In fact, none of the reveling visitors do.

Bioy Casares' explanation for this confusion is far too compelling to spoil by saying any more. Just know that Morel is a poetic evocation of the experience of love, an inquiry into how we know one another, and a still-relevant examination of how technology has changed our relationship with reality. It's also a great read — one you'll be pressing into the hands of your fellow beach-goers.

-Scott Esposito