As I recall, most of the regulars to this space live in the Northern Hemisphere and are, presumably, currently quite cold. So I thought I would put together a list of cosy books to distract you as your nose runs and your glasses steam up every time you go from outdoors to indoors. Don’t need glasses yet? Just wait.
Carmilla
The vampire novel that came before Dracula, I have a very specific memory of reading this on Project Gutenberg, on my phone, in the snow as I awaited a bus for over an hour. Now I think about it, Carmilla isn’t a particularly wintery story, I will just never unpick it from the memory of frozen fingers as I scrolled. It’s short, it is literally free on the internet because the copyright is long expired, there are vampires. Make a cup of tea, curl up and… am I going to say it? Yes I am. Sink your teeth into this excellent novella!
The Scorpio Races
Traditionally read by fans in October and November, I first came across The Scorpio Races in January. It has the best sense of place of any book I’ve ever read so you will either feel immediately autumnal and therefore quite cosy… or you will read the scenes in which the characters move from a freezing beach to a sunlit bakery and warm up. Either way, you will have read The Scorpio Races and thus you will have ascended to a better plane of existence.
Good Omens: the Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
I realised this year that I’ve fallen into the habit of reading Good Omens every January. Possibly because it always makes me laugh and then I warm up (physically and spiritually, I suppose). Possibly the bleak midwinter is just the best time to read about the coming of the antichrist… and the M25.
The Starless Sea
I picked this back up before new year having first read it in, or in between, one of the lockdowns in 2021. It is quite a strange book, and I enjoyed it immensely. I have a few books on the go for uni at the moment, but I think I might pick it up and start again when I have a moment at the end of the semester (which is creeping up, it’ll be fine, why do I panic about 3,000 word essays when I recently finished a 72,000 novel? Possibly because no one is grading the novel). Anyway. Your mileage with The Starless Sea may vary; Erin Morgenstern’s other book, The Night Circus, is also delightfully bizarre but tends to be quite Marmite. So is most of this list, now I think about it.
Devastatingly I must finish this post here as my chronic fatigue has recently become even more chronic and horribly more fatiguing and, as mentioned, I have an essay to be cracking on with. Tomorrow morning. This evening I will be washing my hair and finishing the last fortnight’s edition of Private Eye. It isn’t exactly a cosy read, the Private Eye, but I like to keep my copy handy just in case I ever meet a senior official from the Post Office and then I can chase them from here til Sunday with it.
If any of these titles have caught your eye, please a) borrow them from a library and b) if you wish to buy them, consider placing an order at your local bookshop or using my Bookshop.org page. I earn a teeny amount in affiliate linking if you do.
Look after yourselves!
Francesca
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