Staff Picks
Beat the Heat - Winter Books for Summer Reading
- Sara M.
- Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Collection
For some people, a "beach read" is likely to be a book about people having fun in the sun - splashing in the waves, vacationing by the pool, sizzling on the beach. Not me. I am hot enough already, and by the time July comes around I am tired of being hot. I want to read about snow! I want hats and scarves and murder on the slopes! I want ice floes and frostbite and all the avalanches you can give me. Cool me down! These books are all set in the cold - maybe they'll help you beat the heat.
Here's another list I made a few years ago of hot summer books about cold winter stuff - for even more chilly pleasures!
Touching the Void.
Published in 2012
The 25th Anniversary ebook, now with more than 50 images. 'Touching the Void' is the tale of two mountaineer's harrowing ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. In the summer of 1985, two young, headstrong mountaineers set off to conquer an unclimbed route. They had triumphantly reached the summit, when a horrific accident mid-descent forced one friend to leave another for dead. Ambition, morality, fear and camaraderie are explored in this electronic edition of the mountaineering classic, with never before seen colour photographs taken during the trip itself.
Beartown
A Novel
Published in 2017
"From the New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry, and Britt-Marie Was Here, comes a poignant, charming novel about a forgotten town fractured by scandal, and the amateur hockey team that might just change everything. Winning a junior ice hockey championship might not mean a lot to the average person, but it means everything to the residents of Beartown, a community slowly being eaten alive by unemployment and the surrounding wilderness. A victory like this would draw national attention to the ailing town: it could attract government funding and an influx of talented athletes who would choose Beartown over the big nearby cities. A victory like this would certainly mean everything to Amat, a short, scrawny teenager who is treated like an outcast everywhere but on the ice; to Kevin, a star player just on the cusp of securing his golden future in the NHL; and to Peter, their dedicated general manager whose own professional hockey career ended in tragedy. At first, it seems like the team might have a shot at fulfilling the dreams of their entire town. But one night at a drunken celebration following a key win, something happens between Kevin and the general manager's daughter--and the next day everything seems to have changed. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected. With so much riding on the success of the team, the line between loyalty and betrayal becomes difficult to discern. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear. Fredrik Backman knows that we are forever shaped by the places we call home, and in this emotionally powerful, sweetly insightful story, he explores what can happen when we carry the heavy weight of other people's dreams on our shoulders"-- Provided by publisher.
Overcoat.
Published in 2016
Five tragicomic tales from the visionary writer heralded by Vladimir Nabokov as "the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced" A midlevel bureaucrat in the czar's administration, Poprishchin is hurrying to work when he sees a woman step out of a carriage. Her beauty astounds him, and as she passes by, he hears something impossible: Her dog opens its mouth, and begins to speak. It is Poprishchin's first step on the road to insanity, a journey that will take him into the depths of hell-and raise him up to the heights of emperors and kings. "Memoirs of a Madman" is one of Nikolai Gogol's definitive short works, a satire of the excesses of czarist bureaucracy told with wit, empathy, and his signature blend of the real and surreal. Other highlights in this indispensable volume include the haunting title story and "The Nose," an absurdist masterpiece. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Snow Country
Published in 1996
With the brushstroke suggestiveness and astonishing grasp of motive that won him the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari Kawabata tells a story of wasted love set amid the desolate beauty of western Japan, the snowiest region on earth. It is there, at an isolated mountain hotspring, that the wealthy sophisticate Shimamura meets the geisha Komako, who gives herself to him without regrets, knowing that their passion cannot last. Shimamura is a dilettante of the feelings; Komako has staked her life on them. Their affair can have only one outcome. Yet, in chronicling its doomed course, one of Japan's greatest modern writers creates a novel dense in implication and exalting in its sadness.
The Shining
Published in 2002
First published in 1977, The Shining quickly became a benchmark in the literary career of Stephen King. This tale of a troubled man hired to care for a remote mountain resort over the winter, his loyal wife, and their uniquely gifted son slowly but steadily unfolds as secrets from the Overlook Hotel's past are revealed, and the hotel itself attempts to claim the very souls of the Torrance family. Adapted into a cinematic masterpiece of horror by legendary director Stanley Kubrick -- featuring an unforgettable performance by a demonic Jack Nicholson --The Shining stands as a cultural icon of modern horror, a searing study of a family torn apart, and a nightmarish glimpse into the dark recesses of human weakness and dementia.
An African in Greenland
Published in 2001
Tete-Michel Kpomassie was a teenager in Togo when he discovered a book about Greenland--and knew that he must go there. Working his way north over nearly a decade, Kpomassie finally arrived in the country of his dreams. This brilliantly observed and superbly entertaining record of his adventures among the Inuit is a testament both to the wonderful strangeness of the human species and to the surprising sympathies that bind us all.
Troubling a Star
Published in 2008
"The Austins have settled back into their beloved home in the country after more than a year away. Though they had all missed the predictability and security of life in Thornhill, Vicky Austin is discovering that slipping back into her old life isn't easy. She's been changed by life in New York City and her travels around the country while her old friends seem to have stayed the same. So Vicky finds herself spending time with a new friend, Serena Eddington -- the great-aunt of a boy Vicky met over the summer. Aunt Serena gives Vicky an incredible birthday gift -- a month-long trip to Antarctica. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. But Vicky is nervous. She's never been away from her family before. Once she sets off though, she finds that's the least of her worries. She receives threatening letters. She's surrounded by suspicious characters. Vicky no longer knows who to trust. And she may not make it home alive"--Page 4 of cover.
The Wolf Road
A Novel
Published in 2016
Taught to hunt, shoot, and survive in the remote wilds of a ravaged land by the man who adopted her after finding her wandering in the woods as a young child, Elka reflects on the catastrophic events that destroyed civilization more than a century earlier before gradually realizing that her father may be a serial killer.
Doctor Zhivago
Published in 2011
A Russian epic, "Doctor Zhivago" traces the life of surgeon-poet Yuri Zhivago before and during the Russian Revolution. Married to an upper-class girl who is devoted to him, yet in love with an unfortunate woman who becomes his muse, Zhivago is torn between fidelity and passion.
Moon of the Crusted Snow
A Novel
Published in 2018
"A daring post-apocalyptic novel from a powerful rising literary voice. With winter looming, a small northern Anishinaabe community goes dark. Cut off, people become passive and confused. Panic builds as the food supply dwindles. While the band council and a pocket of community members struggle to maintain order, an unexpected visitor arrives, escaping the crumbling society to the south. Soon after, others follow. The community leadearship loses its grip on power as the visitors manipulate the tired and hungry to take control of the reserve. Tensions rise and, as the months pass, so does the death toll due to sickness and despair. Frustrated by the building chaos, a group of young friends and their families turn to the land and Anishinaabe tradition in hopes of helping their community thrive again. Guided through the chaos by an unlikely leader named Evan Whitesky, they endeavor to restore order while grappling with a grave decision. Blending action and allegory, Moon of the Crusted Snow upends our expectations. Out of catastrophe comes resilience. And as one society collapses, another is reborn."--Provided by publisher.
The Terror
A Novel
Published in 2018
Their captain's insane vision of a Northwest Passage has kept the crewmen of HMS Terror trapped in Arctic ice for two years without a thaw. But the real threat to their survival isn't the ever-shifting landscape of white, the provisions that have turned to poison, or the ship slowly buckling in the grip of the frozen ocean. The real threat is whatever is out in the frigid darkness, stalking their ship, snatching and brutally killing their fellow seamen. Captain Crozier, who has taken over the expedition after the death of its original leader, Sir John Franklin, draws equally on his strengths as a mariner and on the mystical beliefs of the Eskimo woman he's rescued as he sets a course on foot out of the Arctic and away from the insatiable beast. But every day the dwindling crew becomes more deranged and mutinous, until even Crozier begins to fear there may be no escape from an ever-more-inconceivable nightmare.
Polar Star
A Novel
Published in 2011
Arkady Renko has made too many enemies and now he toils in obscurity on a Russian factory ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. But when a female crew member is picked up dead with the day's catch, Arkady becomes obsessed with the case and once again discovers more than he wants to know and certainly more than he bargained for.... From the Paperback edition.
One by One
Published in 2020
"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain"-- Provided by publisher.
The Long Winter
Published in 1981
After an October blizzard, Laura's family moves from the claim shanty into town for the winter, a winter that an Indian has predicted will be seven months of bad weather.