Winter reads to curl up with
It’s always struck me as slightly odd that summer reading lists consistently hit the headlines when, for me, winter is my favourite season to hide under the blankets with a good book. As someone who reads according to my mood and the seasons, one of my greatest pleasures is sitting down each quarter to decide on my seasonal reads. Here are some of my picks for winter, a couple of which are on the to-be-read pile for over the next three months.
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
Set in rural Cheshire near the rocky outcrop of Alderley Edge, the final race between the forces of good and evil is played out across snow covered fields. This is classic middle-grade fantasy for lovers of the Hobbit and the Dark is Rising. Susan and Colin, sent to stay in the country with family friends, find themselves caught up in a battle for the Weirdstone. With caves full of goblin-like creatures called Svarts, witches, wizards and warrior dwarves, there is something enthralling about a battle for the known world taking place in such a domestic setting. It seems incongruous to see giant green women traipsing through the hedgerows and lanes of rural Cheshire and yet the sense of threat and the fear of discovery is very real. If you need any more persuasion, Neil Gaiman cites Garner as one of his favourite writers. Even better, this is the start of a trilogy and I have two more books to go.
Dark Matter; A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver
One to read with the lights on! I first found this author through her middle-grade Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. A boy named Torak and his wolf set out on a series of adventures across various Stone Age landscapes from forest to sea. Without it feeling too much like you’re receiving an anthropological education, you learn about the various dietary habits of Stone Age tribes as well as their tools, rituals and beliefs. Book three, Soul Eater, would be a perfect winter read as its set in the frozen north, but it’s some of Paver’s adult writing that I’m hoping to read this winter. Dark Matter is set in 1937 and Jack, desperate for a chance to change his life, joins an expedition to the Arctic Circle. One by one his companions leave as the winter darkness sets in and yet Jack is not alone on the ice.
The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue
From ghosts to gothic tropes, I do like an atmospheric read in winter, ideally with a slow build-up of tension. A finalist for the Irish Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award, The Temple House Vanishing is set at an Irish Catholic girls’ boarding school. Temple House is a squat, crumbling Victorian mansion perched on the edge of a cliff. Sea fog encloses the school and there’s a smell of incense and spite in the air. Louisa has won a scholarship to Temple House, an initiative by the School Board to appear inclusive. However, the girls do not want Louisa there. From her first night in the school, head-girl Helen and her prefects seem determined to unsettle Louisa, so it’s with relief that she makes her first friend. Victoria is very much of the same social class and background as her schoolmates, but likes to be seen as an outsider, someone who doesn't play by the rules. She is infatuated with the art teacher, Mr. Lavelle, so Louisa also comes into his orbit and one day Louisa and Mr. Lavelle vanish. Their disappearance remains a mystery for twenty-five years until a young journalist with links to Louisa’s family, starts to turn over old ground. Beautifully written with perfect dialogue, Rachel Donohue manages to maintain the sense of suspense and mystery to the very end of the book when the truth suddenly looms large off the page. I was lucky enough to be given an eARC through Algonquin Books and NetGalley just in time for the depths of winter.
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam by M.C. Beaton
Winter is surely the best time for cosy mysteries. M.C.Beaton is the pseudonym for the Marion Chesney Gibbons, a prolific writer who created both Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth. She was the seventh most borrowed writer from British Libraries. Agatha has small “bear-like” eyes and cannot help become embroiled in any mystery that’s developing in her Cotswold village of Carsely. An ex-public relations executive, Agatha is intolerant, impatient and downright rude at times, but somehow you can’t help but hope that she wins the day. In the Fairies of Fryfam, Agatha takes herself off to a Norfolk village following the break-down of an ill-advised marriage. Deep in fen-country, there are mysterious lights that float at the bottom of her garden, but even more urgently the village’s self-made squire has just been found dead and a rather valuable painting turns up in Agatha’s kitchen. This wasn’t my favourite Agatha Raisin mystery so far (that goes to the first books, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death), but Agatha remains true to her abrasive self and it was a lovely way to escape a cold New Zealand night.
Eating for England by Nigel Slater
Food somehow takes on more of an importance in Winter when nights are longer and the cold weather makes my heart sing a siren call for carbohydrates and stodge. It’s also a time when I like to read about food in all its forms. Nigel Slater’s Christmas Chronicles is one of my favourite books around food and its rituals that slightly defies categorisation. Part memoir, part social history and part recipe book, this is Slater’s ultimate guide to winter eating that starts in November and meanders through to the end of January. Eating for England makes for equally pleasurable reading with its short snippets about comfort foods from Jammie Dodgers to the age-old question of whether a blob of jam really does belong in rice pudding. It’s a comforting, amusing and warming read that will make you exceptionally hungry. Here’s Nigel on winter food
“No matter how much our diet moves on to lighter, brighter, cleaner-tasting food, and our national spirit rises to meet it, there is still somewhere deep in our culinary soul that remains forever winter. A place where pastry crusts, dumplings and suet sponges will always reign supreme.”