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.
Audiobook
The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the BuendIa family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the story of the BuendIa family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history,...
The white tiger
Adiga, Aravind.
Ebook
***NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY*** ***NOW A MAJOR NETFLIX PRODUCTION STARING PRIYANKA CHOPRA AND PRODUCED BY AVA DUVERNAY*** 'As angry, smart and dark as Parasite.' Standard ...
Atonement
McEwan, Ian
Paper Book
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge....
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...
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...
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 virgin suicides
Eugenides, Jeffrey.
Ebook
Adapted into a critically acclaimed film by Sofia Coppola and 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, determined to...
The great Gatsby
Fitzgerald, F. Scott; Marchetta, Melina
Paper Book
'A classic, perhaps the supreme American novel' Sunday Times, Books of the Century 'It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life' Jay Gatsby is the man who has...
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
Take your understanding of Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin to a whole new level, anywhere you go: on a plane, on a mountain, in a canoe, under a tree. Or grab a flashlight and read Shmoop under the covers.Shmoop's award-winning learning guides are now available on your favorite eBook reader. Shmoop...
James
Everett, Percival
Paper Book
'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' - Roddy Doyle James is a profound and ferociously funny novel from one of our greatest living writers, Percival Everett. The Sunday Times Bestseller Winner of the...
Dune
Herbert, Frank
Paper Book
'An astonishing science fiction phenomenon' WASHINGTON POST 'I know nothing comparable to it except The Lord of the Rings' Arthur C Clarke Before The Matrix, before Star Wars, before Ender's Game and Neuromancer, there was...
Mrs Dalloway
Woolf, Virginia
Paper Book
A brand new series of five of Woolf's major works, in beautifully designed hardback editions 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 days...
Sing, unburied, sing : a novel
Ward, Jesmyn.
Paper Book
_______________ SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2017 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S BEST BOOKS OF 2017 SELECTED AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW STATESMAN...
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...

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