A Perfect Reading List for Staying Indoors
Our resident reader with a cure for the winter blues
Before I, the Wondercade Bookstorian, proffer my list to you, Neil has agreed to indulge me a smidgen of soapboxing. In this day and age, there appears to be a consensus that winter is the most contemptible time of the year. It’s bleak, it’s dark, and the mercury and capacity for joy are equally low. Yet it’s this very cooped-up state that beckons people into my world, where a simple story — ideally accompanied by a roaring fire and warming libation — has the capacity to outdo all of your real-world escapades from the rest of the year. And do I have some stories for you…
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century
If you feel your attention span has been decimated by the cheap thrills of endless streaming, I suggest rehabbing your concentration with Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu. Think of it as a short story collection for people who don’t like short stories, or a literary version of Black Mirror that employs a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer.
Devil House
If true crime is your guilty pleasure, Devil House by John Darnielle is a meta pathway into the genre I doubt many have tread before.
Mouth to Mouth
But for those simply seeking a page-turner — which is never as simple as it seems — Antoine Wilson’s Mouth to Mouth binds together a near-death experience, deception and the machinations of the art world in a story within a story. And it’s a debut to boot.
All right, enough with the pulse-quickening fare. For those who prefer their reading paired with hot chocolate rather than a dram and a nightlight, why not delve into a book you’ll dine out on for months?
Seven Games: A Human History
In Seven Games: A Human History, Oliver Roeder’s subjects include checkers, backgammon, chess, poker, bridge, Go and Scrabble, and his illuminations and anecdotes are arguably more thrilling than the games themselves.
Buster Keaton
Meanwhile, in biography-land, Buster Keaton is finally getting his due. There are two competing tomes about the vaudevillian-turned-moviemaker, including James Curtis’s definitive doorstopper Buster Keaton…
Camera Man
…and Dana Stevens’s livelier Camera Man, which argues for his unique genius. Dealer’s choice there.
Northwind
For the wee readers with oversized imaginations, put a copy of the late Gary Paulsen’s Northwind in their hands. (I’d venture to guess most of you have read Hatchet, that classic tale of wilderness survival.) This final novel is a fitting end, with a child once again among the elements but this time traversing fjords.
Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady
The teenagers in your household may prefer Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem, which is newly translated from the Dutch by Kristen Gehrman, as it offers a new take on the escapism of a young woman disguising herself as a man in order to break free of her circumstances. Then again, those circumstances — of forced marriage and brutal war in the early 1800s — are rather more than pulse-quickening.
