what to read this winter
12+ cozy and cold books to pick up this season
Winter is the worst.
I hate being cold, I hate not seeing the sun, I hate having to wear pants every day, I hate short days and I hate sleet and I hate the gray snow that piles up under curbs and refuses to melt through some scientific impossibility.
But in truth, there is one perk — you basically have to just sit down in your cozy house under warm lighting and do hobbies.
This is the time when knitters and bakers and sketchers (not the shoes) come alive. All of the small and quiet tasks humans do feel especially poignant this time of year, and reading is no exception.
Counter to the fact that I do not like this season, I enjoy finding it on display in the books I read. These are some of my favorites.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Genre: Fantasy
This book is my muse in writing this post. In spite of writing about springtime recommendations and actually good beach reads and an autumn reading guide, I wasn’t intending to send out a winter counterpart due to my hater’s attitude. But then I realized I’d miss a chance to extol the virtues of the better Morgenstern.
This begins in the gray and unrelenting chill of a New England campus winter, and it travels to New York and to secretive literary society and to underground fantasy worlds dedicated to the love of reading. It’s one of those novels I can’t recommend without convincing myself I need a reread.
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Genre: Literary fiction
This summons the feeling of the bitter cold and lonely off-season in a beach town perfectly. All of Dusapin’s books are mundane drudges through bizarrely somber settings, but they’re so atmospheric and immersive in that sensation. I get that it doesn’t sound like a good thing but it is.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Genre: Literary fiction
This is the book equivalent of Mary Poppins’ purse. There’s so much stuff inside such a small package. It’s under 100 pages long, but it packs in so much emotion, truly full characters, and a freezing cold winter description. Even with all that I like it slightly less than Foster, which is more a testament to Keegan than a diss to this book.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Genre: Literary fiction
This takes place through all the seasons, but the scenes I remember most are set in winter. I’m cold just thinking about it. But also I think I could convincingly construct a motif within this Substack in which I find a way to recommend Donna Tartt in everything I post until she finally publishes a new book, so. I guess take my recommendation with a grain of salt.
Native Son by Richard Wright
Genre: Classic
Speaking of books I recommend in every post…this was my last five star of 2025 and its prize is that I can’t shut up about it. The rage and tension and suffocating panic that builds and builds in this narrative is heightened to a fervor by the blustery, painful weather of a Chicago winter.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Genre: Classic
The way some people feel about Harry Potter (which, by the way — this is not a safe space for Hogwarts apologists) is how I feel about Little Women. Technically this covers many seasons. Technically this is not a Christmas book. Technically its many adaptations can be watched outside of winter. But none of that is true to me. The cozy cold passages are what I remember best and most fondly.
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Genre: Literary fiction
This is not actually set in the winter. And I know what you may be thinking: “When you started running out of ideas you went to your Goodreads shelves and searched cold-related keywords and then got too attached to this to remove it when you remembered it takes place in October, didn’t you.” But you’d only be partially right. It’s also for this title passage, which sums up a lot of this Winter in Sokcho-esque read:
Whenever I’d asked her what she’d like to visit in Japan, she’d often said she would be happy with anything. The only question she’d asked once was whether, in winter, it was cold enough for snow, which she had never seen.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Genre: Thriller/horror
No book has ever freaked me out quite like this one did, and the blizzard going on outside is just as much a character in its narrative as the “what the hell what the hell what the hell” feeling that pervades it.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
Genre: Classic/fantasy/children’s
My criteria for children’s classics is, “Does this make me feel a sense of youthful exuberance, whimsy, and nostalgia even though I am reading it for the first time as an adult?” The answer to this one is yes. Even if you’re an angsty college student going in trying to hate it for Christian allegory purposes, you will not succeed. Lovely classic magical winter vibes, down to the bundled up goat dude and the ice witch.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Genre: Classic/mystery
Classics can be fun! This one in particular, mostly because it’s on a bougie train that someone was just killed on. The winter aspect comes in based on the weather outside.
I don’t know why I’m trying to convince you to read this as if I assume you’ve never heard of it before. But if you haven’t read it for whatever reason, don’t make my mistake. It actually is a good time.
We Do Not Part by Han Kang
Genre: Literary fiction
Taylor Jenkins Reid pivoted from chick lit to historical fiction about groundbreaking made-up women in the back half of the 20th century. Emily Henry switched from bantery charming perfect magical realism to okay, fine, pretty good rom coms. Han Kang went from unhinged horror to quiet literary fiction exploring the generational trauma of violence. This one pairs the slow unspooling of a horrific and near-forgotten past massacre with a fight to survive a snowstorm, both tranquil and tense.
Just like Daisy Jones or Book Lovers, am I right.
The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Something fun about reading ARCs is I don’t always know I had an unpopular opinion. Who knew no one else liked this book! This is a, to me, charming book about family and motherhood (regulars know this is already enough to get my attention these days) told through a bunch of unlikable characters stuck in a snowstorm. There’s a lot of trapped-in-wintry-mix vibes in this post.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Weather holds so much of the plot of this book: The tsunami in Japan and its resulting currents leads to a carefully wrapped journal, written by a young girl in Tokyo years before, washing up on the shore of a remote island to be found by Ruth Ozeki, who spends the rest of the narrative barely having time to do internet research and send emails between an unending stream of Canadian winter storms. It works. It’s addictive.
I’ve just started the Han Kang novel and have had to pause when I got to the severed finger part. Too reminiscent of a recent kitchen accident 😂
Hey Emma, I love your lists - would you ever consider linking goodreads links so I can shelf them easily? Thanks!