Bestselling author and acclaimed actor William McInnes returns with a collection of hilarious and heartwarming stories about those magical, roastingly hot months that make an Australian summer.

There is something about long, hot summer days that stirs our emotions. It's all about holidays, festivals, family and Christmas; a time for swimming, a hit of backyard cricket or firing up the barbie. It's the deafening sound of cicadas, the ticking of a backyard sprinkler, the pain of a wayward bindi or the sting of sunburnt shoulders.

In this collection of nostalgic stories that will make you laugh and make you cry, William McInnes recalls moments in time and memories of summers past. He takes us back to the energy-sapping heat of Redcliffe in the 1960s and 70s, ruminates on budgie smugglers, remembers holiday road trips that went on forever and epic Boxing Day Tests that stopped fans in their tracks. This is a book about the Australia we are and the Australia we were - and the magic of those boiling-hot days when you wake up and know . . . it's going to be a scorcher!

Praise for the writing of William McInnes

'A mix of memoir, observation and discourse, delivered in the seemingly off-hand manner of a backyard semiotician' Saturday Age, Non-fiction Pick of the Week for Yeah, Nah!

'Warm and engaging . . . feels a little bit like home' Daily Telegraph

'If there is a quintessence of Australia at its best, William McInnes has distilled it' The Age

'Warm, nostalgic, funny and undeniably Australian' Sydney Morning Herald