(yes, I know that isn’t grammatically correct.)
Like many parts of the country, Chicagoland is experiencing temperatures hotter than you-know-where. Today the temperature peaked at 97 degrees and with the humidity it felt even warmer. It is just not comfortable to be outside for any length of time. I’m not one to have the air-conditioning on all the time, but right now it is the only way to go.
So I got to thinking (!) about books with cold settings that might temporarily let me escape the heat, if only in my mind. I took a brief survey of the books on my shelves and came up with three:
- Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnik (this is a re-read)
- Snow by Orhan Pamuk
- Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (I’m basing the cold factor on scenes I’ve seen from the movie version)
It seems there are a lot more books with warm weather settings; I get that, I know most people would rather be sitting on a beach than trying to thaw out from shovelling the driveway. But I am not most people. I want to feel cold!
Does anyone have suggestions for cold reads?
Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason – set in Iceland, morose detective, good mystery.
I forgot about all of the Scandinavian mysteries (I count Iceland in Scandinavia). Thank you for the reminder!
How about The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey) or Caribou Island (David Vann)? You probably read one or the other already. They’re both pretty cold!
I have not read either one, Judith but they are on my to read list. Thanks Judith!
I would also recommend The Snow Child, as that is my current listen, and it’s wonderful! It’s such a gentle and wonderful book, full of the arctic blasts that you need right now! A lot of the others sound good too!
Two votes for The Snow Child….. thanks zibilee! I think listening to cold descriptions would be just perfect right now.
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith and City of Thieves by David Benioff will give anyone the chills!
Ah, and that reminds me of 66 Hours by Lee Child – very, very cold too.