By: Jack Miller
Books to Cuddle Up With in the Colder Months
Jack Miller
We all find ourselves longing for something to do during those moments where snow blankets the earth and cold threatens your comfort. Books are the perfect things to transport you to another world or immerse yourself in your own. Here are a few titles that are perfect to snuggle up with during these freezing months.
“The Bronze Horseman” ~ Paullina Simons — Tatiana, a seventeen year old girl who lives with her family in Leningrad at the time of the blockade of the town, meets a soldier named Alexander and they fall in love. Their connection threatens the secrets Alexander fought so hard to keep hidden and the safety of her family, all plastered across the backdrop of the newly empowered Nazi regime.
“The Weight of Ink” ~ Rachel Kadish — Set in London during the 1660s and the early twenty-first century, this novel is the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.
“Murder on the Orient Express” ~ Agatha Christie — This mystery , concerning a body, a dozen passengers and the greatest detective in the world all stuck on a train due to an unexpected snowdrift, is a page turner like no other. With the winter atmosphere, it is a perfect book to indulge in during the snowy months.
“Call Us What We Carry” ~ Amanda Gorman — This luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a trick of hope and healing.
“Misery” ~ Stephen King — If you’re looking for something that is a little darker this holiday season, then this is the perfect story for you. Best-selling novelist Paul Sheldon thinks he’s finally free of Misery Chastain. In a controversial career move, he’s just killed off the popular protagonist of his beloved romance series in favor of expanding his creative horizons. After a near-fatal car accident in rural Colorado leaves his body broken, Paul finds himself at the mercy of the terrifying rescuer who’s nursing him back to health-his self-proclaimed number one fan, Annie Wilkes. And she is very upset over what Paul did to Misery.
“All the Light We Cannot See” ~ Anthony Doerr — Deftly weaving the lives of Marie-Laure(a Parisian girl enduring the Nazi occupancy) and Werner Pfennig(a German boy orphaned and fascinated by machines), Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
“Recitatif” ~ Toni Morrison — In this 1983 short story, we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lost touch as they grew older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other’s throats each time they meet, the two women cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.