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 21, 2026
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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...
Pedro Páramo
Rulfo, Juan
Paper Book
A new translation of the legendary Mexican classic of magic realism which went on to inspire the works of Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa
Da vaita taigara
Adiga, Aravind
Paper Book
Text in Hindi."Varsha 2008 ke M
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Lindsay, Joan
Paper Book
Atonement
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize-winning, internationally bestselling author. ...
The talented Mr Ripley
Highsmith, Patricia.
Paper Book
'The No.1 Greatest Crime Writer' The Times 'Ripley, amoral, hedonistic and charming, is a genuinely original creation' Daily Telegraph Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an...
Rebecca
Du Maurier, Daphne
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX FILM starring Lily James, Armie Hammer, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Collins. 'The moment I finished this story, I turned to page one and started it over again' MALORIE BLACKMAN 'Excellent entertainment . . . du Maurier created a...
Valley of the dolls
Susann, Jacqueline
Paper Book
The exploits and excesses of three pill-popping showbiz heroines: Anne, the smalltown girl supposedly modelled on Grace Kelly, who captivates a millionaire but falls for an English cad; Jennifer, the beautiful Marilyn Monroe clone who possesses everything - except immortality; and Neely, the...
Call me by your name
Aciman, André
Paper Book
The film tie-in edition to the already highly acclaimed Luca Guadagnino-directed film of one of the great love stories of our time.
The Woman Who Had Two Navels And Tales Of The Tropical Gothic
Joaquin, Nick.
Paper Book
Celebrating the centennial of his birth, the first-ever U.S. publication of Philippine writer Nick Joaquin's seminal works, with a foreword by PEN/Open Book Award-winner Gina Apostol ANew York Times Book ReviewEditor's Choice Nick Joaquin is widely considered...
The virgin suicides
Eugenides, Jeffrey.
Paper Book
This beautiful and sad first novel, recently adapted for a major motion picture, tells of a band of teenage sleuths who piece together the story of a twenty-year old family tragedy begun by the youngest daughter's spectacular demise by self-defenstration, which inaugurates 'the year of the suicides....
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
From the world renowned author of Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses comes Salman Rushdie's brilliant novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet, featuring an epic, exuberant love story with a rock 'n' roll soundtrack. At the beginning of this...
The Known World
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
The masterful, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary epic about the painful and complex realities of slave life on a Southern plantation. An utterly original exploration of race, trust and the cruel truths of human nature, this is a landmark in modern American literature. Henry...
The god of small things
Roy, Arundhati.
Paper Book
Set against a background of political turbulence in Kerala, this is the story of twins Esthappen and Rahel who try to craft a childhood for themselves amongst the vats of banana jam and heaps of peppercorns in their grandmother's factory.
Giovanni's room
Baldwin, James
Paper Book
James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel whose frank exploration of sexuality and self-acceptance was decades ahead of its time--named one of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the past 100 years "Baldwin writes . . . with unusual candor and yet with such dignity and...
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
This epic tale is set on the desert planet Arrakis, the focus for a complex political and military struggle with galaxy-wide repercussions. When Duke Atreides and his family take up court there they fall into a trap set by his rival.
Disgrace
Coetzee, J. M.
Paper Book
Based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee, the major motion picture stars John Malkovich. J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018.  At fifty-two,...
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
This novel is an extraordinarily poignant evocation of a lost happiness that lives on in the memory. For years now the Ramsays have spent every summer in their holiday home in Scotland, and they expect these summers will go on forever. In this, her most autobiographical novel, Virginia...
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
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The shark-versus-man classic that inspired the blockbuster Steven Spielberg movie--now in a fiftieth anniversary edition with an exclusive foreword from the author's wife, renowned ocean conservation advocate Wendy Benchley "A tightly written,...

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