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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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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One hundred years of solitude
García Márquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
Though little more than a settlement surrounded by mountains, Macondo has its wars and disasters, even its wonders and miracles. A microcosm of Columbian life, its secrets lie hidden, encoded in a book and only Aureliano Buendia can fathom its mysteries and reveal its shrouded destiny."
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
The white tiger : a novel
Adiga, Aravind.
Paper Book
Introducing a major literary talent,The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen. Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher....
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Lindsay, Joan Weigall, Lady
Paper Book
*Now a six-part TV series starring Natalie Dormer, from Amazon Prime* A 50th-anniversary edition of the landmark novel about three "gone girls" that inspired the acclaimed 1975 film, featuring a foreword by Maile Meloy, author of Do Not Become Alarmed
Atonement : a novel
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
Discover the modern classic that has sold over two million copies. 'A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended' On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off...
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...
Chiamami col tuo nome
Aciman, André.
Paper Book
The virgin suicides : a novel
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Paper Book
Previously adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola starring Kirsten Dunst, this is the story of the five Lisbon sisters - beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the entire neighbourhood. The boys that once loved them from afar are now grown men,...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Paper Book
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald's family and from his lifelong publisher. This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author's own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book...
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 American literary...
The God of small things
Roy, Arundhati
Paper Book
'They all broke the rules. They all crossed into forbidden territory. They all tampered with the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.' This is the story of Rahel and Estha, twins growing up among the banana vats and peppercorns of their blind...
Giovanni's room
Baldwin, James
Paper Book
Considered an 'audacious' second novel, GIOVANNI'S ROOM is set in the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence. This now-classic story of a fated love triangle explores, with uncompromising clarity, the conflicts between desire, conventional morality and sexual identity.
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
Frank Herbert's epic masterpiece--a triumph of the imagination and one of the bestselling science fiction novels of all time. This deluxe hardcover edition of Dune includes: · An iconic new cover · A stamped and foiled case featuring a quote from the Litany Against...
Disgrace
Coetzee, J. M.
Paper Book
**A BBC RADIO 4 GOOD READ** 'A great novel by one of the finest authors writing in the English language today' The Times After years teaching Romantic poetry at the Technical University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced, has an...
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
Ward, Jesmyn
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerAn Indie Next PickA National Book Award-winning AuthorA Finalist for the National Book Award for FictionA Finalist for the Kirkus PrizeA Finalist for the Andrew Carnegie MedalA Publishers Weekly Top 10 of 2017Jesmyn Ward brings the archetypal road novel into rural 21st...
To the lighthouse
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
Crazy rich Asians
Kwan, Kevin
Paper Book
Thwarted love, scheming snobs, obscene wealth and haute couture - it's all here in a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich. An absolutely wicked treat!
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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