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Hello, friends!
Let’s talk about books.
Winter reading is different from warm-weather Summertime reading. Winter reading involves slippers, a hoodie jacket pulled well over our heads, and hopefully a hot toddy. Winter words don’t flit about on beaches during Summer vacation. I like a little more weight to the books I read in the cold weather, some thing that will match the heavy wool blanket I keep on my bed; the one that’s comforting despite how dang itchy it is.
Here are some reads for our Winter-selves. Aren’t you glad the holidays over so we can be regular people who flop on the couch with books instead of… running around not doing that?
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff โข The twisty, uncomfortable, intimate, and beautiful story of a marriage. Iโve read this and it hurts so good. It’s beautifully written.
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein โข From Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia, tell us how you happened, Carrie.
We Are Water by Wally Lamb โข It would be fair to say that everything Mr Lamb writes is worth reading. He writes very well about resilience. See also: Sheโs Come Undone by Wally Lamb โข Remember how engrossing this was?
No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale โข Let’s throw in some young adult, murder mystery fiction.
Itโs What I Do: A photographers life of love and war by Lynsey Addario โข A female conflict photographer’s life. Iโm reading this now and itโs amazing! I can’t put it down. Let’s choose our lives and live them all the way.
The First Bad Man by Miranda July โข Miranda July and Carrie Browstein occupy the same space in my brain, but the way Miranda July tells the story of her characters makes me laugh and breaks my heart.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi โข A brand new book. A man goes from doctor to patient and explores what makes a meaningful life. Life and cancer and other easy topics.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith โข Let’s read a love story.
A Movable Feast by Ernest Hemingway โข Hemingway invites us to 1920โs Paris where we can be broke, beautiful, and in the best company.
I hope you find something cozy to read. What’s on your reading list that I should know about?
xo Joy
54 Responses
I am late to the game on commenting, but I devoured Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl over the holidays. Highly recommend.
You have to read Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. Hysterical…loved this book – laugh out loud.
Thanks for the ideas! Looking forward to snuggling up with some of these.
Always love the book posts and the comments. I’ve gotten quite a few good reads off of past posts. Many of these are already on my list, so glad to know that many others have enjoyed them!
In the similar vein of When Breath Becomes Air, I recommend Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. It’s about medicine and care at the end of life – a subject most don’t want to discuss as it is definitely not a happy one. But this is a very well written book about it. After several years of working with patients in long term care facilities, assisted living facilities and hospice, this is a book I wish more people would read before they are put in these stressful and emotional situations.
thank you for sharing this!
It’s What I Do was by far the best book I read last year in a year of many great reads. Lindsay Addario had me hooked when I heard her on Fresh Air and once I started reading it, I could not put it down. Enjoy.
Thank you! It’s always nice to get reading recommendations. I’m appalled at how few in my circle read fiction (good or otherwise). I don’t recall if it was on a prior list but, I just finished All The Light We Cannot See and absolutely loved it.
Ooh, some good reads here Joy! Just read Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (loved – 90s forev) and the Lauren Groff is next on my list.
So pleased you have I Capture the Castle on your list – it is one of my most treasured. I remember staying up all night reading it when I was 18, a few days before I moved out of home to live in London. I drank endless cups of peach tea and ate a lot of toast with marmalade and had the Sundays (Reading,Writing and Arithmatic) playing over and over again in the background. I still think of that book and the tea and the feeling of imminent change every time I hear that album. And that has to be one of the best first lines ever: ‘I write this sitting the kitchen sink’…
I read The First Bad Man and it was so weird but good! She just has a magical way of capturing and painting her characters. That is the only Miranda July book I have read, I am really interested in reading more of her books. Excited to check out all these other books!
ps. I LOVE these threads and looking through everyone else’s responses. It generates my reading list for the next year or so :)
God and Jetfire by Amy Seek. A memoir about adoption from the birth mother’s perspective. Gorgeously written!
I love winter reading!! “We are Water” is such a phenomenal book. Thanks for sharing this list with your readers. I recently read a fantastic crime fiction novel called โUncontrolled Spinโ by Jerry Summers {website link removed} The book is about a multimillionaire marketing expert, Sean Green, and his most recent client who is looking to put her apparel company on the map. During their โbusinessโ and โromanticโ relationship Seanโs best friend is murdered and the twists and turns in the book donโt stop right up until the very end. This is the first book of the series and I am so excited to have found a book that not only keeps me hooked but offers more than just your typical murder mystery. I think Jerry Summers does a really good job at making it feel like a real romance and interlaces suspense and mystery in a really believable way. Hope you and your readers will check it out
Please read “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. It will totally break your heart (be cautious if you are sensitive to emotionally-challenging subject matter). But it’s so beautifully crafted. Definitely winter reading- good for cuddling up with a giant comforter, a cat, and some tea. Bonus is that it’s part of my New Year’s resolution to read more books by people who aren’t straight, white dudes.
Have added all of these to my growing pinterest board. I just read a review of When Breath Becomes Air and it sounds heartbreakingly beautiful.
I am reading the sequel to the Dragon Tattoo books – The Girl in the Spiders Web – that is a gutsy thriller that helps the cold winter evenings to pass.
I am sold on laura Dave, but that may have been one of your recommendations. She updates the modern love story for the women who came of age ’90s and beyond.
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson, the most beautiful book I read in 2015. Just won the Costa Prize. Deep sighs.
The Painted Veil is a must.
And, for a movie, I just saw Burn After Reading again, it’s so ridiculous and funny… I love it!
You give the best book recs! I’m off to find these :)
I’m in the middle of Erica Jong’s Fear of Dying and find myself laughing and crying almost at the same time! Started it last night and couldn’t put it down until my eyes started closing, which was about page 114. A great read!
Have you read All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr? It’s a great holiday read but haunting and meaningful at the same time. I absolutely loved it.
I charged (and cried, and blustered, and breathed) through All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr). Beautiful. Next in my stack is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. Sounds amazing AND it comes in a pretty package!
Stephanie’s comment led me to read that entire Kathleen Hale blogger/stalker snafu. What an utterly bizarre situation. I had no idea such twisted machinations went on.
When my daughters were young, I Capture the Castle, was one of the books my husband would read to them at night. Thanks for reminding me of that book. I will have to look for it on the bookshelves and give it a read.
I have A Moveable Feast on my winter list too. I just finished The Paris Wife by Paula McLain– it is historical fiction written from the perspective of Hemmingway’s first wife.
Gonzo Girl…… so good!
That’s a great winter list! I’ll be definitely adding a few of your picks to my own! I’ve just finished Big magic by Liz Gilbert, and it was such a lovely and fun read on creativity! And I’m currently halfway into Quiet by Susan Cain – I’m a born introvert, so it’s really an instructive read for me!
‘A Little Life’ by Hanya Yanigahara
I just recently finished Carrie B’s memoir, but let me tell you, it’s ONLY about SK. I was a little disappointed that there were maybe 2 sentences about Portlandia, but it’s not about that. I still really liked it, though!
Excellent list, thanks! I read It’s What I Do and adored it, especially compared to a similar piece of fiction called The Lotus Eaters. Good stuff, incredible lives these women lead. Also of course Hemingway. When you read it, do you compare Paris to NOLA? I am in the midst of We Are Water now. xoxo
Totally agree about reading heavier books in the winter (both physically and in subject matter – I can’t concentrate on Real Issues when I’m dealing with back sweat).
I Capture the Castle is wonderful – so quaint and dreamy. There is also a film with the most gorgeous setting, though I still prefer the book.
I’m currently reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which is great so far. I’m reading it for my book club. :)
Other recommendations:
– Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
– Dept of Speculation by Jenny Offill
– The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (a retelling of Achilles & Patroclus – you’ll need a lot of fortitude to read this one – I cried for a month)
– Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
– On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (one of my all-time favorite books)
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. Every plot synopsis I read or heard about this book made me think I would hate it, but then so many people whose tastes I trust recommended it so highly that I had to give it a chance. And it was so good. I couldn’t put it down and have recommended it more than any other book in years.
Also, “Help My Unbelief” by Barnabas Piper
I love all of Wally Lamb’s books and We Are Water is no exception!
Winter is the perfect time to pick up that old dusty novel I grabbed at a thrift sale ‘just because’ it had an interesting cover, no description, or looked ancient. I recently finished Lorena by Frank G. Slaughter (not-so-ancient, written in the 1950’s), a haunting, short, wonderfully-written novel of a strong-willed plantation woman in the Civil War South. A fascinating perspective, and although I finished the book weeks ago, the ending is still haunting me in an intriguing way. I need a sequel! Next on the shelf is 1946’s “The Great Promise” by Noel Houston, I hadn’t ever heard of it and it was descriptionless when I picked it up at a used book sale. After reading one poor review (and finding no other info on it), I am even more determined to read it!
I Capture the Castle makes my heart go pitter-patter. Timeless, bohemian, romantic.
I’m reading Fates and Furies now. Lauren Groff has quite a vocabulary. I love the beginning in Florida, all hot and muggy, and the characters are about my age so the timeline is relatable. I’m struggling with Lotto as a playwright, but it’s still engaging.
Thanks for all these, Joy!
Have you read A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes? A group of children in Jamaica must be sent back to England by ship. They’re captured by pirates, but it’s not a fairytale like Peter Pan. It’s brilliant and dark. I read it in one day, and it has haunted me ever since.
I read this a while back, but Housekeeping is, in my opinion, the perfect book to read in winter. It’s a slow burn but absolutely rewarding. Right now I’m reading Ripper by Isabelle Allende- a mystery novel involving a precocious teenager, a love triangle, a Victorian role playing game, gentrification, San Francisco, and astrology.
Have you read “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang? This Korean author does a Kafka like job of showing and telling the tragic story of a woman’s struggle with freedom and food. Sad and stunning!
I looooove I Capture The Castle! I happened to read it way back I think in high school and it’s still magical!
I am soon excited to read THE VEGETARIAN!
Finally read Stoner – a quiet intense slow burn of a book that captures a particular place and time through small events brilliantly. Rather sad.
I’m a fan of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency in all seasons. I also like Howard’s End because E.M. Forester can name and capture all the things that happen under the surface of human interaction.
Hi Joy – a big thumbs up for ‘Fates and Furies’ from MrB and I (and President Obama let’s not forget!)..
Our his-and-her reviews are at our blog http://www.mrandmrsblogs.co.uk..
I loved your review, and I didn’t know Fates and Furies was President Obama’s favorite book of the year. No idea when he finds the time to read, but what a great endorsement for Lauren Groff.
Please don’t read the Kathleen Hale book: https://bibliodaze.com/2014/10/an-open-letter-to-kathleen-hale-guardian-books-stalking-is-not-okay/
Eeeee!!! My friend Kathleen wrote “No One Else Can Have You”!!! SO excited she made your list! Gonna show her!
I Capture The Castle! I love it so hard, and I love you for including it in your list. It’s just lovely.
I love every single one of Hemingways books, but this one is the best! It’s so cool to dream of the golden 20ies in Paris…
Thanks for the recommendations! I’ve been in something of a rut with reading so I’m looking for THE book to get me back into it.
I really want to read When breath becomes air – it looks great! Thanks for sharing these :)
Lucy xoxo
https://lucyannblog.blogspot.co.uk
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which has won piles of science fiction awards. Wikipedia calls it a “space opera”. I’m starting book 2 in the trilogy tonight: Ancillary Sword.
I’m reading “Fates and Furies” right now. So good! I just recently read Sally Mann’s memoir “Hold Still.” Wonderful, even if you don’t give a whit about photography.
Two books I’ve been telling everyone to read are The Light Between Oceans & Past the Shallows. These books still have hold of my mind even though it’s been ages since I read them. They are pretty damn amazing.
Oh, I Capture the Castle is so good! Not much like Downton Abbey, but wonderful nonetheless. Moveable Feast is almost unbearably good.
The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street! I totally bought this book because of it’s cover, and I’m so glad I did!