There’s one phrase that brings warmth during the three months of winter: staying cozy! Don’t get me wrong- taking walks outside as the cold puckers your cheeks is only nice when you know you’ll end up in the warm indoors with a mug of hot cocoa, wrapped in a warm blanket, curled up with a juicy book!

Winter reading should involve suspense, new beginnings, mystery, and of course, epic snow scenes. We all have Christmas traditions such as creating a huge spread when setting up the Christmas tree and house decor while singing along to Christmas jingles. My personal December tradition is cuddling up to an annual read of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I absolutely crave a classical, romantic piece filled with comedy that depicts the manners, education, marriage, and money during the Regency era in Great Britain. It pairs well with an Early Grey by the fireplace!

 

This winter’s must-reads are beyond entertaining and engaging. Its theme of a journey involves characters tangled in life’s web of obstacles, love, confusion, pain, and joy. As we approach a new year, let’s give thanks and recognition to our own personal journey: appreciate where you are in your journey, even if it’s not where you want to be. Every season serves a new purpose!

Explore this season’s cookbooks that are hitting the spot, especially for those trying the VEGAN life. If you loved the new Beatles documentary on Disney+ ®, you’re going to love Sir Paul McCartney’s The Lyrics (also a great Christmas gift for him! Just sayin’!)

Check out more goodies and winter cocktails for some happy reading! Cheers!

 

I, Iago by Nicole Galland

I, Iago is an ingenious, brilliantly crafted novel that allows one of literature’s greatest villains,  the deceitful schemer Iago, from Othello, to take center stage in order to reveal his “true” motivations. This is Iago as you’ve never known him. Completely, utterly riveting!

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe

Katharina is the daughter of immigrants, Ivy-League-educated, and speaks four languages. As a single girl in 1940s Manhattan, she is a translator at the newly formed United Nations, devoting her days to her work and the promise of world peace—and her nights to cocktails and the promise of a good time until she is approached by the FBI and asked to join their ranks as an informant. And our course, Katharina seizes the opportunity!

 

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

The famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift shortly after midnight. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer. Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.

 

 

Lovely War by Julie Berry

They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect turned soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the U.S. Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by the goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though War is a formidable force, it’s no match for the transcendent power of Love.

 

 

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People is the story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find that they can’t. The Hulu show is amazing, but I recommend reading the book first!

 

 

 

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn’t experience the same kind of emotional upheaval. Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs entirely to the woman whose name it bears, whose portrait is one of the truest ever made by a writer.

 

 

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer

What would it be like to free yourself from limitations and soar beyond your boundaries? What can you do each day to discover inner peace and serenity? The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions. This book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.

 

Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

Stanley Tucci grew up in an Italian American family that spent every night around the kitchen table. He shared the magic of those meals with us in The Tucci Cookbook and The Tucci Table, and now he takes us beyond the savory recipes and into the compelling stories behind them.​

 

 

 

The Lyrics by Paul McCartney

A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through 154 of his most meaningful songs. From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 Paul McCartney songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them.

 

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman

In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning. Call Us What We Carry reveals that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future.

 

 

Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown

In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.

 

 

Vegan, at Times by Jessica Seinfeld

Jessica Seinfeld isn’t a committed vegan. Her husband and her children aren’t, either. Instead of convincing you to become vegan or shaming you for eating meat, she simply wants to show you how easy it is to be a vegan, at times, by cooking flavorful, affordable, and robust plant-based meals whenever you want—whether that’s every day, once a week, or just once in a while.

       

 

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