If, like me, you are planning a digital detox over your summer break, books are a quality way to enjoy your downtime. Here, editor Trudi Brewer shares her pick of top books, including those that elevate your coffee table style and novels to keep you guessing. Here is what I am reading by the pool this summer.
Image Megan Hess
“That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
Following her New York, Paris, and London travel guides on fashion epicentres, Megan Hess’s latest book blends luxury, fashion and art. An artistic powerhouse, the internationally renowned Melbourne-based fashion illustrator’s latest master stroke is a labour of love. Louis Vuitton: The Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon is receiving five-star reviews, and once you open the first page, you will see why. A beautiful, detailed, coffee-table-worthy book, each page adorned with Hess’s exquisite fashion illustrations, complete with gilt-edged pages, a silky ribbon bookmark, and the gold foil title embossed, on a cover the colour of the iconic LV Monogram pattern. All worthy of the Vuitton legacy.
Along with a narrative tracing Louis Vuitton's journey from humble beginnings to the luxury icon the brand is today. If, like me, you are a fashion lover, you will savour all 191 pages of what is a tribute to a man who founded a brand that has redefined the world of luxury. Revolutionising the art of luggage and laying the foundations for an unparalleled legacy in fashion, Hess has captured this beautifully with every stroke of her pen.
Louis Vuitton: Illustrated World of a Fashion Icon, by Megan Hess, $47, published by Hardie Grant.
Are you constantly dreaming of renovating? Well, this book is a brilliant source of inspiration for redesigning your home or building a new one. Featuring twenty architects from across the globe, it’s a design bible for creating a house that not only fits your family but also reflects your style, with resale value top of mind. It provides inspiration that goes beyond simply chasing a dream. Featuring clever apartments through to sprawling homes surrounded by native forest, each is carefully considered to represent the now and the future, while wonderfully sharing the 'voice' of the owners, who live in some of the best cities in the world, including Sydney, Melbourne, London, Lisbon and New York. It’s another book to proudly add to your coffee-table collection. I guarantee it will be well flicked through by yourself and your guests.
The Architect’s House, by Stephen Crafti, Photography by Nicole England, $75, published by Hardie Grant.
It’s a full-time job keeping up with health and wellness trends and determining what’s sound advice and what's a short-lived fad. Then there is the quest for balance, while meeting the demands of daily cooking, and juggling a career and family. We all have times when eating isn't about chasing perfection; it’s about finding simple, quick solutions to nourish. Quick Wins Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives is my kitchen’s new BFF. British author and founder of Deliciously Ella, Ella Mills, a champion of plant-based living, offers recipes that balance taste and health, inspiring you to create wholesome food without the stress. In this book, you'll find meal plans and shopping lists designed to help you make healthy choices that you will want to cook and share. The goal: Real food, with real flavour, that is both satisfying and sustainable. Some of the best I've made include crispy cauliflower rice bowls and quick curries, it’s pages of good food with no fuss.
Quick Wins Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives, $47, by Ella Mills by published by Hodder & Stoughton.
Age Like a Girl, $45
Finally, we are living in an age where hormones and menopause are the topics of many conversations, both in the media and across the table. Here, bestselling author, podcaster and women's health expert, Californian, Dr Mindy Pelz, shares the science behind how menopause rewires your brain and how this transformation is happening for you, not to you. Menopause is no longer the whisper often referred to as ‘the change’ associated with the decline of a once-vibrant woman with social relevance. According to Dr Plez, it’s a reset that can deliver greater confidence, clarity, and energy that you may not have felt in years. With science and wisdom, she helps you make sense of brain fog, mood swings, fatigue, and erratic emotions to achieve power, vitality, and peace. According to Dr Pelz, “Menopause isn't the end of your story. It's the turning point”.
This book is definitely worth a read if you are navigating or struggling with this life stage.
Age Like A Girl, by Dr Mindy Pelz, $45, published by Hay House Inc.
Flesh, $38
When an author wins The Booker Prize for 2025, you know it will be read to devour in one sitting. Flesh by David Szalay is just that. 'A revelatory novel,' according to the Sunday Times, it’s the work of a Canadian author, his sixth novel. It tells the story of 15-year-old Hungarian boy István, who moves to a new town and is lonely and unfamiliar with the school's social rituals. Isolated, he befriends his neighbour, a married woman closer to his mother’s age, who becomes his only friend. The relationship soon shifts into a clandestine affair that István himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control. Fast-forward to adulthood, and he is carried gradually upwards, where money and power find him mixing with London’s super-rich, who threaten to undo him completely. This novel asks what drives a life: what makes it worth living and what breaks it.
Flesh, by David Szalay, $38, published by Vintage Publishing.
The latest from New Zealand star writer Emily Perkins, The Forrests, is getting a lot of attention, including from me. According to Helen Brown, from the Daily Telegraph, “It’s the novel I would most like to press into my friends' suitcases this summer ... kept me up reading late into the night”. I agree. Centred around the character Dorothy Forrest, or Dot, she is seven when her odd, disenfranchised family moves from New York City to the small town of Auckland. Her mother distracted, her father disengaged, this book follows Dorothy through her family life, from falling in love, marriage and motherhood, from the glorious anguish to loss and everything in between. One day, Dorothy is told something she didn’t know, and it changes her appreciation of her mother and father, but more so of herself. It’s colourful, joyful and heartfelt, it speaks of family and time, ageing, loneliness, and how life can change - if you're lucky enough to be around for it.
You will not want to put it down. Bravo, Emily Perkins.
The Forrests by Emily Perkins, $25, published by Bloomsbury Publishing.
Style-inspiring and captivating.