10 books to read this winter

book recommendations for winter

There’s an old tree in my garden from which I can watch the passings of the seasons from my kitchen window. The lush greens of summer, the cherry blossom of spring, the burnt orange hues of autumn, until the leaves fall and only the bare branches are left.

I’ve always liked the colder months. When people around me bemoan the temperatures dipping lower and the evenings drawing in, I find comfort in the warm blankets, the knit-wear and scarfs I can finally wear again, the incandescent flickering of candlelight. It’s my favourite time of year to take long beach walks, to sit in the warmth of a coffee shop while the windows frame the fading daylight. There’s a quiet beauty that winter carries, an almost otherworldly stillness.

The tree in my garden through the seasons (missing a summer photo)

The feeling of a crisp winter morning can send me hurtling back through my archive of memories; the smell of the frostbitten air pulling me into a scarily-specific November day of my childhood, the colourful lights against the darkness making me reminisce on every Christmas of my life. Winter is tinted with nostalgia, which is maybe why I like it so much.

Besides of course, the books. There’s something incredibly comforting about a book set in winter; the cozy atmosphere, the snowy landscapes, the quiet introspection that only feels possible in winter when the world burrows beneath a blanket. Winter is also the best season to get some reading done, to escape the cold and rain, to not have the pressure of making plans after work so you can head straight home to your book. The list below are 10 books that I think are ideal to read during winter.

---

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

In a remote Polish village, Janina Duszejko, an eccentric woman in her sixties, recounts the events surrounding the disappearance of her two dogs. She is reclusive, preferring the company of animals to people; she’s unconventional, believing in the stars; and she is fond of the poetry of William Blake, from whose work the title of the book is taken. When members of a local hunting club are found murdered, Duszejko becomes involved in the investigation.

---

Jamaica Inn - Daphne Du Maurier

In the bitter November wind, Mary Yellan crosses Bodmin Moor to Jamaica Inn. Her mother's dying wish was that she take refuge there with her Aunt Patience. But when Mary arrives, the warning of the coachman echoes in her mind. Jamaica Inn has a desolate power and behind its crumbling walls, Patience is a changed woman, cowering before her brooding, violent husband.

When Mary discovers the inn's dark secrets, the truth is more terrifying than anything she could possibly imagine and she is forced to collude in her uncle's murderous schemes. Against her will, she finds herself powerfully attracted to her uncle's brother, a man she dares not trust.

---

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

Orphan Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves?

---

Intermezzo - Sally Rooney

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common. Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties - successful, competent and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father's death, he's medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women - his enduring first love Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother.

Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined. For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude - a period of desire, despair and possibility - a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.

---

Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

---

Eileen - Ottessa Moshfegh

It is winter-time and Eileen Dunlop is dreaming of escaping her life. In the meantime, she spends her days caring for her alcoholic father, working as a secretary in a prison, and shoplifting. When the beautiful, charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted, unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. But soon, Eileen's affection for Rebecca pulls her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination.

---

No Exit - Taylor Adams

Darby Thorne is a college student on the way home to see her sick mother, when she’s stranded by a blizzard at a highway rest stop in the middle of nowhere. She’ll have to spend the night in the rest stop with four complete strangers. Then she stumbles across a little girl locked inside one of their parked cars. There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, no way out because of the snow, and she doesn’t know which one of the other travellers is the kidnapper.

---

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger

It's Christmas time and Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another school. Fleeing the crooks at Pencey Prep, he pinballs around New York City seeking solace in fleeting encounters—shooting the bull with strangers in dive hotels, wandering alone round Central Park, getting beaten up by pimps and cut down by erstwhile girlfriends.

The city is beautiful and terrible, in all its neon loneliness and seedy glamour, its mingled sense of possibility and emptiness. Holden passes through it like a ghost, thinking always of his kid sister Phoebe, the only person who really understands him, and his determination to escape the phonies and find a life of true meaning.

---

I’m Thinking of Ending Things - Iain Reid

Jake and his girlfriend are on a drive to visit his parents at their remote farm. After dinner at the family home, things begin to get worryingly strange. And when he leaves her stranded in a snowstorm at an abandoned high school later that night, what follows is a chilling exploration of psychological frailty and the limitations of reality.

---

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

endnotes

• We’re only in January, but I may have already found one of my top books of the year - Skippy Dies by Paul Murray! I loved The Bee Sting so I wanted to read Murray’s backlist titles, and this one was incredible. It’s a sprawling tragic comedy, and a book I wanted to start again as soon as i finished it.

• I watched a lot of films in December so have been trying to keep the momentum going. Out of the films that have some award/Oscars buzz, I’ve enjoyed Anora the most, although I still need to get around to The Substance and Nosferatu. In terms of other films, I really liked Saturday Night because I love chaos, but from reading reviews I believe you have to have limited knowledge about SNL to really enjoy it (which I have, because I’m not American). You can follow my Letterboxd here.

• I was on a documentary kick last year and am currently working on a post of recommendations. But I want to watch more documentaries in 2025, so if you have any recommendations I’d love to hear them <3