Winter Reading
I wanted to gather up some winter reading recommendations for these winter days. I’m talking about true “winter” books, ones featuring cold and snow and dark evenings. I’ll keep adding to this list, but here are some book ideas for you to get cozy with.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
This is not only a wonderful winter read, it’s one of my favorite books. You only need to budget an afternoon for this little wonder. The shortest book ever longlisted for the Booker Prize.
A Girl in Winter by Phillip Larkin
I know Larkin as a great poet (he has a memorial in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey), so I was happy to read, and love, his first novel. Set in and written during WWII, Larkin considered the book a representation of the loss of innocence and its consequences. Literary and atmospheric.
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
In 1920s Alaska, a childless couple builds a snow-girl who comes to life. The landscape is harsh, and the story isn’t exactly light, but it’s enchanting and cozy nonetheless. This book delivers on the prose and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Reid
I wrote about this book a little more in this blog post. It’s a great thriller! I can’t discuss the plot much for fear of giving up a spoiler, but I’ll share this quote from Charlie Kaufman, who directed the movie adaptation: “I’m Thinking of Ending Things is an ingeniously twisted nightmare road trip through the fragile psyches of two young lovers. My kind of fun!”
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
I don’t really know how to introduce this book. A man falls in love. That’s the plot engine. What Helprin does with this basic idea is, he creates a masterpiece. Fantastical, magical (literally magical realism), and exquisitely written. When I read it years ago, it seemed like the best book I’d ever read. But it’s a commitment. Lazy readers (sometimes that’s me) need not bother.
The Evenings: A Winter’s Tale by Gerard Reve
It might have been this article in The Guardian that put Reve’s book on my radar. But I heard the book talked about in such a passionate way that I had to read it. This is an all-character/little-plot book, and one reviewer called it “the original Seinfeld plotline—a book about nothing.” But it’s smart and witty and insightful, which is the reason those who love it love it.
