Starting my winter book-stack: what should I include?

[doyoulikemyyams]

I'm moving from an equatorial country to the Scottish Highlands next month, and so I'm putting in some leg-work to prepare myself for winter after not experiencing one for years!

I want to have a stack of books to work through on cold, dark evenings, and would love your recommendations for what to include...

Generally I love:

• Dysfunctional / multi-generational family stories
• Good-quality mysteries (by which I mean Gone Girl can get in the bin, but Fingersmith was a win)
• Essay collections written by women
• Big fat tomes!

I love Anne Patchett, Zadie Smith, Barbara Kingsolver, Joan Didion, Sayaka Murata, Katherine Arden...

What would you add to a stack of books designed to get someone through this winter in a cosy, cold-weather, wintery way?

I'm reading Thunderclap by Laura Cummings which I think fits the essays criterion, plus she's from Scotland (though most of the book is about Dutch artists).

A long way back but if someone is mentioning enormous tomes, did you read A Suitable Boy back in the day? Plus I read Life and Fate recently and it's magnificent.

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie o Farrell
(Book of my year)
Hamnet (about Shakespeare's wife and family)

North Woods by Daniel Mason - genuinely unputdownable.

Enlightenment by Sarah Perry who wrote The Essex Serpent

I treated myself to God if the Woods today, also an Ann Patchett and a book on Medieval travel. My birthday coming up!

last year I enjoyed River Kings about tracing the voyage of a garnet stone found in an archaeological dig in the UK to the Silk Road.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. The slow unraveling of a family.

Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
The Lonely Londoner by Samuel Selvon
The Children of Dynmouth by William
Trevor

these are books I've really enjoyed recently and the characters and places have stayed with me. Unfortunately they are not terribly long.

Non fiction Can Any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey. Mentioned quite often on here, about women from the early part of 20th Century Britain forming a magazine club who write articles for the magazine about their varied lives. I highly recommend; lots of dysfunctional real families.

Have you read The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters? I recommend that very much also.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier - always worth a reread if you've read it already!

Can I recommend the Ragnar Jonasson Hidden Iceland trilogy. They definitely hit the multi-generational dysfunctional family and a good murder/crime story brief.

Great for cold winter nights!

Jo Nesbø's Harry Hole crime series is excellent too.

Rosamunde Pilcher, particularly September (you can start that now!) and Winter Solstice, for cosy reads set in Scotland.

His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnett. Historical crime novel set in the Highlands, Booker-nominated, really great. Just not very long! Christopher Brookmyre for Scottish-set crime, and the historical crime novels set in Edinburgh, written with his wife Marissa Haetzman under the pen name Ambrose Parry.

You lot are incredible! I'm almost overwhelmed – this is adding up to be at least two winters' worth!

Or is it... winter is LONG in Scotland, right? 😂

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/393238443934

this says it all OP

One last idea....bit cheesy and you might have read them but the Shetland series by Anne Cleves are good

The Plainsong trilogy by Kent Haruf. Wonderful characters in a Colorado town, beautifully written.
Another yes to Hello Beautiful.

If you like crime, Stuart MacBride and James Oswald are great (the latter sets his novels in Edinburgh) as well as the usual suspects, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh.

Apologies if someone's suggested it already, but I've just thought of the Black House trilogy by Peter May, set in the Scottish islands

The Fell by Sarah Moss

Ok, so it's set in the Peak District but I love the feeling of claustrophobia and the escape outside to the often dark, rainy outdoors. Might inspire you to take up running. And it's 'slim', sets the scene, tells the story.

I think Daphne Du Maurier is the perfect writer for winter reads

I love “The Nine Tailors” by Dorothy L Sayers for a winter read. It opens with her detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, going off the road in the snow on New Year’s Eve, and the weather continues to play a role throughout.

I’d recommend signing up with the local library & getting access to books online for free with the libby app.. also pressreader is free through library access (sign up online so don’t even need to visit an actual library..) winters in Scotland can be loonnggg!