Red alert! From Paris to London, Europe is in the thick of a heat wave, with temperatures almost reaching 41C in the City of Lights, and 35.7C in London. And while some turn to Magnums and cheap Argos fans to help them make it through, we think a little literary escapism might just do the trick.
From Croatia, to Uruguay, to the dusty Deep South of America, to India’s tropical Malabar Coast, we’re prescribing a list of heatwave-ready books that will transport you to places where the sea breeze tickles your neck and humidity settles over you like a second skin. At least here, the 35C temperatures come with a side of coming-of-age angst, romantic pining, and shock endings.
Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje
Follow Ivona and Vlaho as they come together and fall apart on the cinematic Croatian coast. Having met as students in bustling Zagreb in the early 2000s, the lovers quickly married and divorced. Now, when Ivona is forced to return home to care for her sick father, she finds herself sucked back into Vlaho’s orbit, and the orbit of his new wife, Marina. Spanning twenty years, this love story is hypnotic and sea-dazzling.
Jean by Madeleine Dunnigan
Set during the historic heat wave summer of 1976 (whose previous hot-weather record was just recently beaten), teenagers Jean and Tom share a look across the grounds of Compton Manor, a boarding school for boys with problems. Their gaze marks a secret intimacy, one defined as much by violence as by friendship and desire. As the boys’ connection deepens, so too does the risk that surrounds it. Is this a love story? Read our interview with the author to unpack this tale of a complex, queer connection.
Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki (trans. Karen Van Dyck)
A Greek classic, this nostalgic novel follows three sisters growing up in the countryside outside Athens in the years before the Second World War. Follow feisty Maria, withdrawn Infanta, and daydreaming Katerina as they share secrets, fall in and out of love, and reconfigure their sister connection as they teeter on the precipice of adulthood. You’ll feel the Mediterranean sun in your eyes, and yearn for a big straw hat like one of the three sisters’ signature toppers.
The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
Set in apartheid-era South Africa, this is not only a story of drought, but a story of the discontent that underpins our main character’s life. Mehring is a rich white farmer who sees it as his duty to preserve the social order, and to keep his Black foreman Jacobus in line. When it’s announced that there won’t be rain for five months, conflict breaks out, and a heat storm and a dead body are soon to follow.
Pleasure Beach by Helen Palmer
Set over the course of one hot summer day in Blackpool, 1999, this queer love story follows
the story of three women: Olga, a struggling playwright who is late for her shift at the chippy; Rachel, a strange 19-year-old girl who Olga met the night before, and Treesa, who is off to a waterpark with her mum and daughter in tow. Their three lives converge in this lyrical novel, set against a backdrop of chip grease, salt air, and the whirring of ice cream trucks.
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
In East Africa, 12-year-old Yusuf is sold to a merchant to pay off his father’s debts. In a season of drought, Yusuf must travel with his new master’s caravan to Lake Tanganyika. Along the way, he encounters local tribes, wild animals, German soldiers, and more. With a scorching atmosphere and a slow burn pace, this is a different kind of coming-of-age novel that keeps you guessing.
The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden
Check in to the elegant Les Oeillets, a faded hotel in France’s Champagne country. Here, five siblings are left to fend for themselves when their elegant mother is suddenly taken ill. Originally published in 1958, this dreamy novel follows this ragtag group of siblings as they wander through the old orchards and sun-drenched town squares of northern France, refusing to let anything ruin their holiday.
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
If you’re not familiar with the exploits of one of literature’s greatest con artists. Tom Ripley, what rock have you been living under? This novel by the equally-mysterious and often villainous Patricia Highsmith follows young American upstart, Tom, as he travels to Italy on a job. The mission? Retrieve the wayward son of a wealthy businessman and bring him home. However, Tom finds himself very fond of Dickie Greenleaf – perhaps a little too fond. Under the baking sun of the fictional resort town of Mongibello, Tom’s obsession soon has murderous consequences.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Bluebottles hum in the air, bananas ripen on the trees, and crows feast on mangoes. This is May in Ayemenem – the setting for Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize-winning novel. Sullen, sleepy, and rich, this novel follows seven-year-old twins Estha and Rahel as their lives are interrupted by the arrival of their British cousin to India.
Bait by Eugenia Ladra (trans. Miriam Tobin)
Paso Chico is hot, humid, and claustrophobic: a fishermen’s town full of street dogs and dusty roads. And yet, everything changes the summer of Marga’s thirteenth birthday, when she meets Recio. He appears like an apparition, revealing the strange, twisted dynamics of the town’s inhabitants. As cargo ships wait on the viscous river, a sea of mud and secrets is unleashed, love and violence living side by side in this small rural town in Uruguay. Read our interview with the author for the inside scoop about how Paso Chico was inspired by her hometown of Montevideo.
The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho yeeun (trans. Yewon Jung)
On a muggy summer afternoon, four people enter New Seoul Park, Korea’s greatest theme park. An abandoned child, a single mother, and a couple in the midst of a breakup are all approached by a man selling a mysterious jelly candy. Before long, the ideal summer’s day dissolves into chaos. Could the candy be to blame?
Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
July, 1976, London. It hasn’t rained for months when Robert tells his wife Gretta that he’s going to pop around the corner to buy a newspaper. He never returns. As Gretta’s children are called home to help in the search for their father, family secrets start to bubble to the surface, meanwhile our characters stare at the sky, praying for just a single drop of rain.
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Imagine this: A dusty mill town in rural Georgia, late 1930s. John Singer is a lonely deaf-mute. When his only companion, a fellow deaf man, is institutionalised, John must move to a new house, where he encounters a set of equally lonely neighbours: the owner of a local cafe, an adolescent girl, an angry alcoholic, and the town’s only Black doctor. Watch out for the grit in your eyes, as you’ll feel like you’re walking the streets of this Deep South town yourself.
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
It’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and the female students of Appleyard College in Victoria, Australia are enjoying a summer picnic. At the foot of Hanging Rock, a strange, dreamy atmosphere settles over the class. A few girls decide to ascend to the top of the peak. However, it’s not long before a student named Edith returns in hysterics. Something strange has occurred. The rest of the climbers are missing, and Edith has no memory of their ascent. If you’re looking for a taste of the gothic, and yearning for the sound of a summer breeze blowing through gum trees, this is the book for you.
Cast Away by Francesca De Tores
It’s 1704 and Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk has been abandoned on “a stony blemish in the ocean”, 400 miles off the coast of Chile. With little more than a Bible, a few wild goats, and cats to keep him company, Selkirk has nothing to do but meditate on his past – and ponder why he has been cast off by his own shipmates. Based on the real-life maroon tale that inspired Robinson Crusoe, this darkly funny tale will have you feeling bleached by the sun just from reading its pages.
