Perfect books for winter

We are deep into the season of down coats and fleece-lined tights, of snowflakes swirling down from white-gray clouds or the poetry of bare branches against a vivid blue sky.

Winter is here, and while it isn’t my favorite season, I do have a few coping strategies, including a stack of seasonally apt books. So, in case you’re shivering too (because it seems that a lot of us are), I thought I’d share my wintry picks with you.

Winter: Five Windows on the Season, Adam Gopnik
I picked up this essay collection a few winters ago, mostly because I loved Gopnik’s memoir Paris to the Moon. Gopnik examines winter from several angles: historical, literary, cultural, philosophical. He admits to being a lover of winter, and his prose evokes the best of the season: walking home under a snowy sky, ice skating on a frozen pond, watching the snow fall from behind the comforting barrier of a windowpane. He explores winter’s potential for recreation and daydreaming, its vital place amid the cycle of the seasons. For those who struggle, as I do, to develop “a mind for winter,” Gopnik’s musings are enjoyable and thought-provoking.

The Long Winter, Laura Ingalls Wilder
I read and reread the entire Little House series as a child, but I’ve picked up this book every winter since I moved to New England. Laura is such a keen-eyed, relatable character, and I always hope to channel a little of her indomitable spirit. She also tells a good story – the prose is simple but powerful, and the struggles of that harsh winter are sharply drawn. I especially love the scenes around the table, when Pa plays his fiddle and sings, and his reminders that “it can’t beat us!” Winter, even on the Dakota prairie, doesn’t last forever.

A Mind of Winter: Poems for a Snowy Season, ed. Robert Atwan
This collection is a new acquisition for me; I picked it up at the Bookstore in Lenox, Mass., this fall. I knew I’d need a few reminders of winter’s beauty when the temperatures dropped after Christmas. The poems here are varied and lovely – Frost, Dickinson, Jane Kenyon, Marge Piercy, Mary Oliver and more – and many of them capture images of winter in words as brief and crystalline as snowflakes.

The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey
Based on an old fairy tale about a girl fashioned out of snow, Ivey’s debut novel beautifully evokes the landscape of Alaska: its harshness, its isolation, its often stunning beauty. It’s a story of love: Jack and Mabel, devoted to each other, yearn for a child. When they build a girl out of snow, a young human girl appears as if summoned, and though they come to love her deeply, she can’t be tamed or kept. Heartbreaking and so, so lovely.

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Maud Hart Lovelace
Most of Lovelace’s books, which are set in Minnesota, contain a few wintry scenes: sledding, ice skating, sleighing parties. This fourth book in the series has some of the best: Betsy’s cozy afternoons in the new town library, bobsled parties under the stars, sipping hot chocolate (with whipped cream, of course) on cold days. And shopping for Christmas ornaments. So fun.

What are your favorite books to read in the wintertime?

Links (not affiliate links) are to my favorite local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith.