Reading: The best thing about winter
(BPT) – This winter, instead of getting swept away in holiday shopping stress or cold weather blues, try digging into a great book. With more time spent indoors, many find winter to be the perfect time to get lost in a book, so why not join them? The only problem: you may find that there are so many great titles available, it’s hard to decide which is the best book to pick up or download on your Kindle.
To help readers sort through the massive selection of books available, the Amazon Book Editors read through thousands of pages to curate lists of personal recommendations for readers. Along with such bucket lists as the 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime and 100 Mysteries & Thrillers to Read in a Lifetime, the editors regularly post new book reviews and recommendations at the Amazon Book Review. For voracious readers looking for something new every month, the Amazon Editors offer a Best of the Month list for each month of the year.
‘Our Amazon Books team is made up of six editors who all have different tastes and preferences, resulting in some very animated conversations when creating our must-read lists,’ said Sara Nelson, Editorial Director of Amazon.com. ‘With all the time we spend cooped up inside, winter is a great chance to catch up on those books you’ve been meaning to dive into.’
To make the most of the long nights and short days, or to help get you started on your holiday shopping, the Amazon Books Editors offer a selection of some of their picks for the cold weather reading season.
‘Sinatra: The Chairman’ by James Kaplan
Just in time for the 100th anniversary of Ol’ Blue Eye’s birth, this doorstop of a book (over 900 pages) is the much anticipated sequel to Kaplan’s bestselling ‘Frank: The Voice.’ Painstakingly researched, Kaplan isn’t afraid of going into the darker aspects of the man’s life. With details about his relationships with the Mafia, JFK and the Rat Pack, we finally have a definitive biography of this true American original.
‘Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things’ by Jenny Lawson
If winter fills you with the urge to hibernate, New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson’s latest book will wake you right up. While Lawson’s memoir is both a call to embrace the goofier slices of life, and an exhortation to stop believing people with mental illness can just shake it off, this is a book full of surprises and laughs.
‘Avenue of Mysteries’ by John Irving
Beloved author John Irving (‘The World According to Garp’), returns with his 19th novel. Known for his lyrical language and picaresque tales, Irving has said he is ‘drawn to characters who see the future, or think they do,’ and that is what this book explores – what happens when the past and present converge.
‘Six of Crows’ by Leigh Bardugo
This is a stay indoors and read all day kind of book. Kaz Bekkar, a young but notorious figure in a city fueled by greed and vice, pulls closest companions together for a job that will result in either certain death or staggering wealth. A vivid fantasy, ‘Six of Crows’ sinks into the reader’s imagination and stays there long after the book is closed.
‘The Witches: Salem, 1692’ by Stacy Schiff
For the history buff out there, Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff recreates the bizarre episode that began as an act of social and religious subversion – teenage rebellion, essentially – and ended in the hangings of 19 men and women. Full of occult trappings and institutionalized hysteria, this story is the perfect combination of the real and the supernatural.
‘The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes’ edited by Otto Penzler
Reading Sherlock Holmes stories is best done on a cold, dark night. Just in time for the winter months, award-winning mystery editor, Otto Penzler (who also owns the fantastic Mysterious Bookshop in New York City), has compiled 83 Holmes and Watson stories written by authors old and new: Laurie R. King, P.G. Wodehouse, Anne Perry, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, O. Henry and many more.