Literary Heatwaves

When the heat rises in fiction, so too do tempers, tensions and the promise of an inevitable reckoning. We’ve curated a collection of summer-soaked literary reads, available to borrow and inspired by Melbourne’s summer heat as the season draws to a close.


Updated January 18, 2026
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Literary Heatwaves

When the heat rises in fiction, so too do tempers, tensions and the promise of an inevitable reckoning. We’ve curated a collection of summer-soaked literary reads, available to borrow and inspired by Melbourne’s summer heat as the season draws to a close.


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The talented Mr Ripley
Highsmith, Patricia
Paper Book
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia.
Paper Book
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been one of the literary giants of the past century; his body of work is an undisputed cultural landmark and a touchstone for countless readers and writers alike. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a true classic, a timelessly fascinating and intricately...
Atonement
McEwan, Ian.
Paper Book
Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, this beautiful hardcover edition of the bestselling "tour de force" (The New York Times) from the Booker Prize-winning author is a profound--and profoundly moving--exploration of shame and...
Rebecca
Du Maurier, Daphne
Paper Book
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME * The only hardcover edition of Daphne du Maurier's beloved, internationally best-selling gothic mystery. Rebecca has twice been adapted for film and was named a PBS Great American Read Top 100 Pick. ...
Valley of the dolls
Susann, Jacqueline
Paper Book
The 50th Anniversary Edition of Jacqueline Susann's All-Time Pop-Culture Classic The perfect gift for any Valley fan or your favorite Doll, featuring a new cover design * introduction by Simon Doonan * never-before-seen archival material * an essay from Jackie, "My Book Is...
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Lindsay, Joan
Paper Book
Call me by your name
Aciman, André
Paper Book
Now a Major Motion Picture from Director Luca Guadagnino, Starring Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet, and Written by Three-Time Oscar(tm) Nominee James Ivory The Basis of the Oscar-Winning Best Adapted Screenplay A New York Times Bestseller A...
The virgin suicides
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Paper Book
The national bestseller from Jeffrey Eugenides, the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author of Middlesex and The Marriage Plot With a New Introduction by Emma Cline Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola, The Virgin...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott; Marchetta, Melina
Ebook
A gorgeous new edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, with an introduction by Melina Marchetta All the bright young things go to Jay Gatsby's Long Island parties. Yet Gatsby himself is reserved and mysterious. He seems always to be waiting for something or someone. When he...
The ground beneath her feet
Rushdie, Salman.
Paper Book
Vina Aspara, a famous and much-loved singer, is caught up in a devastating earhtquake and never seen again. This is her story, and that of Ormus Cama, the lover who finds, loses, seeks and again finds her throughout his extraordinary life in music. It is narrated by Ormus's childhood friend, Rai.
The known world
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize Award and recognized as the best book of fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times, Edward P. Jones's The Known World is a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power and continues to show its importance to the...
Giovanni's room
Baldwin, James
Paper Book
Set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, this groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love is "a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction" (The Atlantic). * Presented here in stunning hardcover and with an Introduction by Colm Tóibín, New York Times...
The god of small things
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
BOOKER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * An affluent Indian family is forever changed by one fateful day in 1969, from the author of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness and Mother Mary Comes to Me "[The God of Small Things] offers such...
James
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view * In development as a feature film to be...
Dune
Herbert, Frank
Paper Book
A deluxe hardcover edition of the best-selling science-fiction book of all time--part of Penguin Galaxy, a collectible series of six sci-fi/fantasy classics, featuring a series introduction by Neil Gaiman Winner of the AIGA + Design Observer 50 Books | 50 Covers competition
The White Tiger
Adiga, Aravind.
Paper Book
Winner of the Man Booker prize 2008 Winner of the Galaxy British Book Awards 'Author of The Year' 2009 '[An] extraordinary and brilliant first novel... Adiga is a real writer - that is to say, someone who forges an original voice and vision.' - Sunday Times
Disgrace
Coetzee, J. M.
Paper Book
The provocative Booker Prize winning novel from Nobel laureate, J.M. Coetzee "Compulsively readable... A novel that not only works its spell but makes it impossible for us to lay it aside once we've finished reading it." --The New Yorker At fifty-two, Professor...
Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
'She always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day' On a June morning in 1923, Clarissa Dalloway is preparing for a party and remembering her past. Elsewhere in London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Their...
Sing, unburied, sing : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
*WINNER of the NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for FICTION *A TIME MAGAZINE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR and A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 OF 2017 *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize *Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal *Finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize...
To the lighthouse
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
Mr and Mrs Ramsay and their eight children have always holidayed at their summer house in Skye, surrounded by family friends. But as time passes, bringing with it war and death, the summer home stands empty until one day, many years later, the family return to make the long-postponed visit to the...
Crazy rich Asians
Kwan, Kevin.
Paper Book
Crazy Rich Asians is the outrageously funny debut novel about three super-rich, pedigreed Chinese families and the gossip, backbiting, and scheming that occurs when the heir to one of the most massive fortunes in Asia brings home his ABC (American-born Chinese) girlfriend to the wedding of...
Jaws
Benchley, Peter.
Paper Book
Celebrating its 50th anniversary with 20 million copies sold, Peter Benchley's Jaws is the gripping pulp thriller that inspired Steven Spielberg's classic, blockbuster film adaptation. Now, with exclusive bonus content from Peter's personal archives and an exclusive...
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