Put down the phone! Step away from those emails! This is your sign to pick up a new book or, at the very least, start to collate your holiday reading list.

These recommended reads, from some interesting and bookish friends, will inspire you to have a literary summer of your own. No pressure to finish, but easy to get through at the beach or by the pool while your hair air-dries in the sun.

Carole Beu MNZM, owner of The Women's Bookshop

Wonderland, a glorious novel in which Wellington author Tracy Farr takes a brilliant leap of imagination - she brings renowned scientist Marie Curie to New Zealand for rest and recuperation.

Marie stays with a loving family who run Wonderland, an amusement park that actually existed on Miramar Peninsular in Wellington in the early 1900s. The family has three clever little girls, triplets, who are utterly adorable. This is a joyous novel that really is full of wonder.

Juliette Hogan, fashion designer

I absolutely LOVED readying My Friends by Fredrik Backman recently. Honestly one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.

The way that the author can articulate the feelings of a group of youths and what they are going through is just magical. I missed the book and characters when I finished it and I feel envious of those that have yet to read it as they have such a treat in store.

Rachel Soo Thow, aka The Lit List

Everyone remotely interested or intrigued by the dark side of the beauty and wellness industry needs to read this.

Set in a recognisably millennial landscape of green juices, pastel packaging and faux-feminist branding, the novel is part cult satire, part erotic thriller - and entirely delicious. Protagonist Marnie Sellick - a disillusioned screenwriter-turned-receptionist enters the beauty world enamoured with the brand Rytual and its founder Luna - from there on, it’s bathed in seduction and madness with a feminist lens.

It’s a super fast read and love the fact that this book is in the works of being picked up for a TV adaptation – if this wasn’t a sign...

Guy Coombes, photographer

I just read Air by John Boyne, and knocked it out in one four hour flight to Australia. Not a long read, but a nice bite size book which still manages to go deep into characters and story. Most of the story also takes place on a plane, so a perfect read at altitude en-route to your summer destinations!

Mandy Myles, owner of Bookety Book Books

Heart the Lover unfolds in three parts, each orbiting a pivotal moment in our narrator’s life. It’s a short novel, but in that compact space it manages to sweep you up and then completely break you apart. It captures all the highs and lows of young love and coming of age, before offering us the chance to reflect as we meet the characters again in adulthood.

I heaved big, ugly sobs at the end and genuinely felt like I was grieving for the rest of the day. This is one of those rare books I wish I could read again for the first time. Heart the Lover embodies the best part of being a bookseller: finishing something so special that you just can’t wait to press it into as many readers’ hands as possible.

Melanie O'Loughlin, co-owner of Lamplight Books

A penniless English artist washes up in Venice and is taken in by Danilo Donati, the art director for Fellini and Pasolini. In this luminous novel set in 1970s Rome, he finds a place of refuge amongst the genius and the creative tumult of the film world. Glorious locations, a doomed love story and the scars of fascism make for sexy, dark escapism.