As Los Angeles starts to get colder, and by that I mean a brisk seventy degrees at midday, it gets me in the mood for winter books, which in my mind means anything involving snow. I still regard snow with child-like wonder, having grown up in Southern California where my family likes to go to the beach on sunny Christmas Days. Last year it snowed on New Years and the next morning ice sprinkled across bright green lawns and palm trees—it was magical. Unfortunately, this was an anomaly, and I only really get to experience snow on vacation or fantastically.

That’s why I chose The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell to read this winter. I found this novel off the shelf of my local bookstore, immediately attracted to the cover, which features lots of snow and wolves (creatures I inaccurately associate with winter). It takes place in the deep, icy woods of Russia, and follows a girl as she stands up for the wolves her and her mother reintroduce into the wild after their neglectful lives in captivity.

Last year, I read George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones because Jon Snow says, “winter is coming.” In the past, I read Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials for the polar bears and northern lights, and Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak for the sleigh rides (there are a lot of them).

It may be a weird tradition, but it has inspired me to read a lot of wonderful books I might not have read otherwise. What winter books will you read this year and what makes you read them?