Dystel, Goderich & Bourret » winter

Reading through Jonas

sharon — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 22:14:03 +0000

This weekend a winter storm poured snow all over the East Coast, bringing 27 inches to my neighborhood and as much as 30 elsewhere! Most in my circle on Twitter seemed to be rejoicing at the “snow day” (though is it really a snow day if it falls on a weekend??) to read, snack, and watch Netflix. Instagram was full of people’s cozy blanket piles, pots of soup, and cups of cocoa steaming next to a stack of books.

What interested me most, though, was the celebration of the “excuse” to stay home and catch up on reading. Being something of a homebody, I frequently spend one or both weekend days holed up to read no matter the weather, so Jonas was less of an excuse and more of an atmospheric backdrop. So I am curious about those bookworms for whom this was a deviation from their usual weekend routine. Do they simply have more dynamic social lives than I do? Do they make more brunch/theater/museum plans thus putting me to shame as a New Yorker and cultural citizen by comparison? I thrive on long hours in silence, alone, to counterbalance the busyness of the work week and the stimulation of the social engagements – I figured a lot of avid readers feel this way but perhaps my introversion is more rare than I thought.

What’s keeping us from making every Saturday a snow day?

‘Tis the season to read & read & read

Amy Bishop — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 18:13:12 +0000

Because I don’t do enough reading as it is, I’ve already started compiling my holiday reading list for our winter break. I have a bad habit of squirreling books away in various corners of my office and apartment all mentally marked “to read later,” but never really quite getting to them. But I’m going home to my quiet rural town for six days (!) and what else is a girl going to do but read?

On my list:

UNBECOMING by Rebecca Scherm

THE LAKE HOUSE by Kate Morton

THE JAPANESE LOVER by Isabel Allende

YES PLEASE by Amy Poehler (this has been on my list since last summer, embarrassingly enough)

ORDINARY LIGHT by Tracy K. Smith

What’s on your list? Any books you’re looking forward to pick up in the New Year?

Let nothing stand in the way of your holiday reading. Taking some tips from this bun.

Winter Books

Erin — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 21:37:22 +0000

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?