Cozy winter books that can light up those gloomy winter days

Winters have arrived ferociously in many parts of India and we are all feeling its wrath. With the temperatures dipping day by day, it is becoming increasingly difficult to step out without several layers of clothing. For most of us, all we want is to lay in bed curled up in blankets with an unlimited supply of tea or coffee throughout the day! However, that’s not the only way to ‘chill’ in winters. A good book can provide you with the much-required warmth and comfort on a chilly winter night. And YES, this is true for even books set in cold places, or at a time of the year when it’s snowing continuously! Thus, here’s a look at some cozy winter books for gloomy winter days.

Set during the snowfall of a blustery Midwestern winter, the book is the tale of two brothers growing up in rural isolation, and of the budding romance between two young lovers. "A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith," it is an utterly beautiful work.

Pic credit: Faber & Faber

A comic fantasy novel set in the 'Discworld'. Tiffany Aching is a young witch-in-training in Discworld. When she catches sight of the "Dark Dance" of the changing seasons, she decides to join in, only to catch the eye of the mysterious Wintersmith. Now she has to deal with her own coming of age and the attentions of an ancient winter elemental who just might bury her entire world in snow.

Pic credit: Corgi Childrens

'The Golden Compass' or 'Northern Lights' is a young-adult fantasy novel. It is set in a parallel universe and follows the journey of Lyra Belacqua to the Arctic in search of her missing friend, Roger Parslow, and her imprisoned uncle, Lord Asriel, who has been conducting experiments with a mysterious substance known as "Dust".

Pic credit: Knopf Books

It centers on the Silver family, reeling from the loss of Lily, mother of twins Eliot and Miranda, and beloved wife of Luc. Miranda misses her with particular intensity. Their house belonged to her mother’s ancestors, and to Miranda, it seems they have never left. Forcing apples to grow in winter, revealing and concealing secret floors, the house is fiercely possessive of the young Miranda.

Pic credit: Picador

Set in 1992, Ka, a poet in political exile, returns to Turkey as a journalist, assigned to investigate troubling reports of suicide in the small and mysterious city of Kars on the Turkish border. The snow is falling fast as he arrives, and soon all roads are closed. There's a 'suicide epidemic' amongst young religious women forbidden to wear their headscarves. Islamists are poised to win the local elections and Ka is falling in love with the beautiful Ipek, now recently divorced. Amid blanketing snowfall and universal suspicion, he finds himself pursued by terrorism in a city wasting away under the shadow of Europe.

Pic credit: Faber

On San Piedro Island, in 1954, a fisherman is found dead in the nets of his boat, and a local Japanese-American man named Kabuo Miyamoto is charged with his murder. In the course of his trial, it becomes clear that what is at stake is more than one man's guilt. Above all, San Piedro is haunted by the memory of what happened to its Japanese residents during World War II, when an entire community was sent into exile while its neighbors watched.

Pic credit: Bloomsbury