Books I want to read this winter | 2019

By this point I have so many unread books on my shelves that I want to read that it’s getting nearly impossible to pick which one I want to read next.

However, with the weather getting colder now, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick up some of the books I’ve got that are a bit more wintery.

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

I actually started reading this last year, but fell into a bit of a reading slump and ended up picking some different, shorter books up instead. So, I thought I’d pick it up again this year, because obviously it has the word snow in the title. It’s actually about a fisherman that is found dead, and a Japanese-American man is charged with his murder. As far as I’m aware, it also explores the treatment of those residents in the aftermath of the Second World War. This edition is also part of one of my favourite editions as they’re so beautiful – the Bloomsbury Modern Classics.

 

Thin Air by Michelle Paver

I used to read Michelle Paver’s children’s books when I was younger, but I’ve never picked up any of her novels for adults. It’s about The Himalayas and is set in 1935, and I think is a ghost story about what happens as four Englishmen get higher and higher up the mountain. A spooky festive read? Great.

 

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

I don’t think this one really screams winter in any way except that it’s set in northern Russia and it’s cold there. However, it’s one that’s been on my list for a while that I’ve read quite a lot about. It’s based on folklore as far as I’m aware, and is about a man who gives a necklace to a young girl, but afraid of the gift, her father hides it away until later on in life, where it emerges that she might be the only one to be able to save her village – using the necklace.

 

Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka

This is one of my travelling books that I mentioned in a previous post, that I bought while I was in Prague. It’s a thriller, about a young girl who is found dead at a playground, and follows several different characters linked to the dead girl in some way or another, as police try to get to the bottom of what happened to her. I haven’t really read a lot of thrillers this year, so I thought winter would be the best time to pick this one up – given that snow is in the title.

 

The Missing of Clairdelune by Christelle Dabos

I read the first book in The Mirror Visitor series, called A Winter’s Promise, earlier this year, and wasn’t too fussed until I started enjoying it when it got to the end. I’ve been waiting to read the second instalment for months, and since it’s set in a wintery place, I thought it would be the perfect read for the end of the year. I can’t really say much about this one as it’s the second book, but the first one follows a woman called Ophelia, who can walk through mirrors and read objects. She’s to be married to someone from another kingdom, and the first book follows her going to that kingdom for the first time.

 

The Hunger by Alma Katsu

I think the only reason that I’ve left this one until the end of the year is that it’s got a very cold feeling cover. It’s actually about a group of people who struggle to survive in the mountains, who begin to disappear. It’s based on a true story, and I really don’t want to know anything about this going in because I don’t think it’s a story that I’m already familiar with, so I’m interested to hear what it’s about.