With that in mind, here are six TV shows based on books, so you can read outdoors when it’s hot, and watch indoors when it’s cold.

Wolf Hall

BBC iPlayer

The court of Henry VIII might not sound like a natural setting for a thriller, until you learn about the story of Thomas Cromwell.

Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of novels charts the story of a statesman who rose from ordinary circumstances to become one of the King’s most trusted advisors. In total, it clocks in at just shy of 2,000 pages, which might make an adaptation daunting. Thankfully, the TV show manages to carry over the richness of the novels while staying light on its feet. The focus is on drama, rather than rigid faithfulness to the source material, creating television that’s weighty, but not heavy.

The Eternaut

Netflix

If the weather is too warm for you, this one might be perfect: it starts with snow.

Unfortunately, it turns out there’s more to the precipitation over Buenos Aires that meets the eye. It kills on contact, leaving humanity decimated overnight. As if that wasn’t enough, the survivors soon have an alien invasion on their hands.

The original comic was written in the 1950s by Héctor G. Oesterheld, two decades before his native Argentina was taken over by the military junta that ‘disappeared’ him. The TV show updates the setting to the present day, making it a post-dictatorship story, and an interesting companion to the original, pre-junta comic run.

Watchmen

Now TV

The seminal 1980s graphic novel from Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, and John Higgins changed comics. Suddenly, they were seen as a medium for grown-ups. In 2019, a sequel TV show explored what might be happening in the world of flawed superheroes, decades on.

In so doing, it takes a risk by doubling down on something fans of the graphic novel sometimes miss: you’re not meant to like the characters. Fan favourite Rorschach is shown to have inspired a white supremacist group, currently sowing fear and paranoia in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s a story that honours the spirit of the graphic novel, while keeping it brutally relevant for the 21^st century.

Silo

Apple TV+

Rebecca Ferguson (Dune) helms this Apple TV+ sci-fi show in which humanity has been forced underground.

The books began as a self-published short story, Wool. Others soon followed, creating a runaway hit. The job of the TV show was to add connective tissue between the big moments provided by fairly episodic source material. Series one gives Juliette (Ferguson) a mystery to solve, namely the death of her boyfriend George (Ferdinand Kingsley, Reacher). There are also tweaks to character details and the lore of the Silo, creating a show that works for the screen, without losing any of the creaking dread of the books.

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

BBC iPlayer

The American version of the young adult crime novel has a key difference from the original. Over in the states, it’s set in Connecticut, rather than Little Kilton, Buckinghamshire.

The TV show opts to keep things in the UK, allowing it to retain the British charm of the original book. Pip Fitz-Amobi (Emma Myers, Wednesday) investigates the death of a local schoolgirl for her EPQ, prompting Cosmopolitan (in real life) to run an explainer on the uniquely British qualification. Then there’s the age-old challenge of American actors trying to do an English accent. For our money, Myers approached it at full, well-enunciated tilt.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Before the 2011 film brought the John le Carré novel to the big screen, there was the 1979 TV show.

Alec Guinness stars as George Smiley, the former spy brought back from retirement to find a mole in British intelligence.

Brilliantly understated, Smiley is rarely the most charismatic man in the room, but he is often the smartest. Not a word is wasted, and every question he asks – however innocent – is layered with intent, hinted at with only the slightest raise of an eyebrow. It’s easy to overlook the spook, right up until he catches you in the lie that undoes your career.