Baltimore's caught in its typical July/August funk of heat and humidity. So is Washington, where the Post's book blog, Short Stack, is recommending novels to beat the heat. Among them: Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston, and The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.

For a novel, I'd recommend Willa Cather's My Antonia, which makes you feel the grip of a deadly winter on the plains. And if we broaden the choice to nonfiction, I'd add Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and Touching the Void by Joe Simpson, mountaineering books that are chilling in more ways than one.

What would you recommend for a cool summer read?

Photo of Mt. Everest by Adeel Halim, Bloomberg News