Steamy, dishy, heart-thumping: the ultimate summer reads
Sex and romance
A classic (and gossipy) Jane Austen courtship, Bolu Babalola’s romantic myths, and Red, White and Royal Blue’s pulpy princes: recommendations of love and lust from steamy romps to mind-bending power plays.
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Sci-fi and fantasy
Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Liu Cixin make their requisite appearances in this list to unsettle and provoke – but so do audacious, newer entries including Claire G Coleman’s Indigenous speculative fiction and Grace Chan’s dystopian love affair.
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Humour and comedy
Be warned: this is a group of (mostly) dark funnies: a novel set entirely in the workplace nightmare known as Slack; the labyrinthine absurdities of the NHS in Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt; the ultra-modern cringe in Paul Dalla Rosa’s short stories. It’s only right to cleanse your palate with Nora Ephron.
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Thrillers and mysteries
Scammers aplenty! A Hamptons grifter in Emma Cline’s it-girl novel The Guest, a plagiarist in RF Kuang’s equally buzzy Yellowface, and Gone Girl’s scabrous protagonist – the urtext of conwomen everywhere – all feature in these heart-thumping page-turners.
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Celebrity memoirs
It’s a two-pronged approach here, with both dishy tell-alls (Britney Spears, Julia Fox, Keith Richards) and heartwarming, tear-jerking reflections (Michelle Zauner, Andre Agassi, Matthew Perry).
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Readers’ picks
Finally, the best books, chosen by you! From recent heavy-hitters including Curtis Sittenfield’s Romantic Comedy and Barbra Streisand’s weighty memoir to genre gems from Robert Sheckley and Stephen Baxter.
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