Chilling reads to keep you cool in summer

Summer is here and Melbourne is heating up. Here, our marketing and events coordinator Ellen Cregan shares seven bookish recommendations to help you cool down.


The Library of Ice by Nancy Campbell

This book takes on the mammoth task of telling the story of ice – a substance that covers a great deal of our planet, but is rapidly shrinking away. Nancy Campbell packed up her life and left on an odyssey to learn everything she could about ice, snow, and cold places, from the cultures they have borne and the stories they’ve inspired, to the behaviours they necessitate. This is an unforgettable work of narrative non-fiction that will cool you off on even the most stifling summer evening.


Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Sometimes you can’t go past the classics. Northanger Abbey is the tale of a young girl, Catherine Moreland, who is obsessed with Gothic tales of horror. When Catherine is invited by the Tilney family to come and stay in their home, a real abbey, her gothic reading habits and overactive imagination get the best of her. She begins to suspect that something very sinister may be afoot in the abbey, and that the patriarch of the Tilney family is hiding a dark secret…


Wintering by Krissy Kneen

Set in the wilds of chilly Tasmania, Wintering is a novel that blends mythology with science, and looks at the impact domestic violence can have on a relationship. Jessica loves her boyfriend deeply, despite his sometimes-frightening temper. When he disappears into the forest, she is desperate to find out what happened to him. A strange group of women contact Jessica, and tell her that her partner has not gone missing – he was taken.


The White Darkness by David Grann

Henry Worsley was a man obsessed – his life-long goal was to recreate the infamous journey of Ernest Shackleton. This solo, unaided walk across the continent of Antarctica, which Worsley planned to complete in eighty days, would eventually cost him his life. This is an excellently told tale of passion and exploration from one of the greatest non-fiction writers of our time.


Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Hannah Kent’s evocative and bone-chilling account of the last days of Icelandic murderess Agnes Magnúsdóttir is a book everyone should read. Kent masterfully unveils Agnes’s crime chapter-by-chapter, alongside descriptions of her everyday life awaiting execution on a freezing farm. A remarkable modern classic.


Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

This novel might be set in a warm climate, but the tale it tells is a chilling one. Jojo is thirteen-year- old, and lives with his loving grandparents, his baby sister, and occasionally his imperfect, drug-addicted mother, Leonie. When Jojo’s father is released from prison, Leonie decides to take the children on a cross-country trip to pick him up. As well as Jojo’s father, the prison is home to the ghost of a young boy who carries a traumatic history of his own, one that he shares with Jojo. This is a stunning and intelligent contemporary ghost story.


Trace: Who Killed Maria James? by Rachael Brown

In this gripping true crime read, Rachael Brown attempts to unravel the story of Maria James’ death, and the hunt for her killer. Maria was killed 38 years ago in her Thornbury bookshop, and her killer was never apprehended. This is a very well balanced work – Brown never dehumanises Maria, and writes with respect for her family – and now is the perfect time to read it as the murder case has recently been reopened by the Victorian Coroner.

Cover image for The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate

The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate

Nancy Campbell

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