You’re not imagining things — we’re hitting record highs with this summer’s heat wave. “Red-Hot Planet,” blared the headline of a recent article in The Washington Post, which noted unprecedented temps everywhere from Canada to Scotland to Algeria, even Northern Siberia. And when the mercury rises, there’s really only one place we want to be: cooling down by the pool, a good book in one hand and a cocktail in the other.

If you’re office-bound like us, counting down the days till the weekend, we have the next best thing: The Swimming Pool in Photography, out this month by Hatje Cantz. It’s a stunner of a book and covers the culture and visual history of pool life, as captured by the world’s greatest photographers: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Martin Parr, George Hoyningen-Huene, Martine Franck, Harry Benson and many others. Check out the Beatles swimming in Miami, Slim Aarons’ sun-kissed BP, a languid Faye Dunaway poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel, not to mention one gorgeously designed swimming pool after another, including some practically floating in the sky.