Winter Reading Recommendations

hi everyone I'm here today to give you some winter reading recommendations all of the books that I mentioned will be linked in the description box down below I'm going to talk about books I've read and would recommend and then at the end I'm going to talk about books that I think seem quite wintery and on my TBR and I might pick up in the next few months so first off we have a wild Swan and other stories which are the collection of short stories by Michael Cunningham who is the author of the hours these are fairy tale retellings and I really really enjoyed them they're quite dark and each of them has a beautiful black-and-white illustration the illustrations look like this they're by a Japanese artist called Yuko Shimizu while we're talking about illustrations I have to mention Cora Lee Bickford Smith's the Fox and the star she is a book cover designer she works for penguin she designs all of their clothbound series all of their penguin English library editions lots of different covers this was her first book she's since brought out a second called worm in the bird but this one is my favorite it's all about Fox who walks around at night trying to find a friend and the inside is slow beautiful so each page is like screen prints and chooses color in a really really beautiful way so that's one spread here some of the colors as you've seen by some of the spreads I've shown you are quite muted and she has monochrome ones and then she has this fiery orange that is just absolutely beautiful this is a picture book and it is what at least it used to be my nephew's favorite picture book when I first bought it for him but it's definitely one that you can give to adults as well and artistic people in your life what would be a book recommendation video for me without a recommendation of a book by Michelle favor this is under the skin this is his first novel it is a creepy book about a woman who was driving around Scotland picking up men in a and I'm not going to say more than that but it's absolutely wonderful and I think it's perfect for this time of year there was a film to Scarlett Johansson but the film is very very different so have you already seen the film don't be put off reading the book I actually saw the film first and read this and it's it's so different it doesn't matter I always reread his not materials at this time of year this is Northern Lights the first in the choji I'm sure you all know about it but if you don't it's about a young girl called Lyra she lives in a world where people's souls are manifestations that live outside of their body in animal form until you're a teenager these change form until they become fixed and there are gobblers in libraries Oxford gobblers are stealing children they're taking them away for him for experiments and Lyra it needs to save her friend Roger who's been taken it is a book that will just wrap you up in a blanket and I can't recommend the series enough if you haven't read them please please please read them perhaps an obvious choice but I had to mention it just like I had to mention autumn in the autumn book recommendations video this is winter by Ali Smith it's the second in her seasonal quartet so you don't have to have read autumn first because the characters are different it's just the theme of being very very present because it's written in them now that is the same this is about a family getting together at Christmas it has an threads of Shakespeare in here it looks at immigration with regard to the Christmas story and there are so many different wonderful things in here I've spoken about this in a video that's entirely dedicated to this book so I'll link that video up here and down below but Ali Smith is always a safe bet or a good story now we have here snow garden by Rachel Joyce is a collection of short stories that are warm but also very moving Rachel Dewar's always makes me cry so these are stories that are all surrounding Christmas Christmas days by Jeanette Winterson is a collection of stories about Christmas as well as autobiographical discussions on the author's life and recipes as well it's quite eclectic really I would recommend reading this over the Christmas period so before Christmas and if you want queer love stories here you go a few poetry collections that I picked off the shelf that seemed quite so or for this time of year we've got winter windows by shauna young-dal this is about a mother who was thinking about her daughter growing up we have frost fairs by Jambo color which is a collection of queer poems coming-of-age we have an ocean of static by junior carpenter which I've spoken about in a separate video which I'll link down below this is about voyaging on the sea and it's a bit like mathematical equations and that each poem is fragments of travel logs from ships from long ago and they have this repetitive element to them that makes it feel as if you're on this choppy sea it's it's very unusual and something that is worth studying so if that sounds interesting then check that out we've got unexpected weather weather by Abby Curtis it says on the back unexpected weather makes the familiar extraordinary and the supernatural everyday in poems about animals and clouds scientists and circus performers about love and bean pods bruises and myths and the moments before death her death uses playful subversions of formica perverse and exquisite poise between gravity and lightness I read this pre booktube and very much enjoyed it and then there is the watch what astronomy by Paul Deaton which looks at family life and uses astrology to talk about family members as stars and constellations and how they orbit each other and it's really beautiful I talked about it in more detail in one of my poetry book Society vlogs which I'll link in the description box our endless numbered days by Claire fuller is about an 8 year old girl called Peggy who has a survivalist father who tells her that the end of the world has happened and drags her up to a hut in Germany it is inspired by fairy tale it's very dark and I've very much enjoyed reading it when it says came out this book notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller is one of my favorites I also read this pre booktube and I don't know why but I associate it with this time of year the cover looks quite summery in fact the cover doesn't really have anything to do with the book at all this is about a woman called Sheba who's a teacher she starts at a new school and a woman called Barbara fools in love with her she's an older teacher and it's an obsessive one-sided love and she's writing about it in her diary and Barbara then sees that Shiva has started a relationship with one of the young students and she uses this as leverage to get what she wants it is dark it is twisted it is absolutely mesmerizing and also I'd recommend the film which has Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett because those women are fantastic next we have the lost things by John Connelly this is set during wartime it's also a token at time in the protagonist David's family his mother has died his father has remarried he doesn't like his wicked stepmother and this is projected into him going into this fairytale Rome he walks into the garden at night he finds a crashed plane and he enters a portal into another world where he has to encounter lots of different dark fairy tale characters to get to the other side then there is Julius Winston by Jared Donovan this I also read pre booktube and it's about a man who lives in a cabin in the woods in the snow with his dog and then one day somebody kills his dog and he tries to find out who that is next is one I'm actually currently reading it's a magic toy shot by Angela Carter I always associate Angela Carter's books with this time of year with dark evenings and blankets and cups of tea because that imagery is so rich and it's not really cozy but it is fantastical this I think it's one of the least magical realist of her books but it's about a young girl called Melanie who wanders through the garden one night in her mother's wedding dress and then she's uprooted and sent to live with relatives that she doesn't really know one of whom makes toys for a toy shop which are incredibly lifelike you can't tell what this is from the cover but it's a copy of Peter Pan an old battered copy of Peter Pan Peter Pan is something I also like reading at this time of year like Alice in Wonderland I suppose as well though that has summer feelings to it even though it is cozy it is depth on a warm at summer's day this I associate with winter and I have spoken my love of Peter Pan how I've dissected it how I like to analyze it and if you are interested in all the dark things that you have perhaps not considered with regards to Peter Pan then you should watch that video which I'll link up here and down below and then finally for the books that I've read before I move on to ones that I may pick up soon we have the restless girls by Jessie Burton which I've talked about a lot recently it's illustrated by Angela Barrett it's about a group of sisters who were locked up by their father it's a retelling of the twelve dancing princesses fairy tale it gives me all the warm feelings that ballet shoes by North Strathfield did which I should also probably include in this video but I don't have a copy to hand it made me feel like a child in all of the best ways and it's about how women can succeed by banding together and how they can achieve things in very very different ways next to some books that I may pick up in the next few months we've got ice by Alec van which is a classic that I hadn't heard of before about a possible future where everything has turned to ice then this is a very loose winter recommendation because I don't think it's actually to do with winter at all but it makes me feel of winter because it is called the white book by Han Kang and it's translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith this is amusing on the color white I know that white isn't really a color in the same way that blue EPS by Maggie Nelson is amusing on the color blue and I'm sure that snow will creep into it somewhere but this is one I've been wanting to get you for ages anyway then we have the winters child by Cassandra Parkin she is the author of meet worlds fairy tales which is a fantastic collection of short stories that retails seven of the Grimm's fairy tales this is the winter's child it's a novel the blurb is not on this proof copy and but I believe it is about a child who goes missing I always think that post-apocalyptic and also classics oh good for this time of year and this is one that combines both of those things and it is called the purple Clara by MP she'll which is about the end of the world the purple cloud tells the grand lead bleak story of Adam Jefferson the first man to reach the North Pole and the last man left alive on earth it's sweet smelling deadly cloud of poisonous gas is devastated everything and as Jeff some travels the stricken globe in search of human life he slowly succumbs to madness and unleashes fire and destruction on his planet I mean people say takes the season to be jolly but tis the season for destruction as well one this being on my winter TBR for years and I'm really ashamed that I haven't read it yet it's Wildwood and by colin Meloy and it has illustrations by Carson Ellis this is about a girl called Prue whose brother gets stolen by Ravens and or crows and she has to go and save him in the forest this is a true G I own all three it's a middle grade it sounds brilliant inspired by fairy tale I haven't read it yet I really should so this is a note to myself too please pick this up this year and speaking of Carson LA I also would recommend this which is one I have read and it's called home by Carson Ellis it's a picture book about all the different kinds of homes that someone might have and I think it's really really delightful and something just it's curl up with with a cup of tea one winter night one I haven't read and also have been meaning to read this for ages is the bear and the nightingale by Katherine Arden which is inspired by Russian fairy tale I believe I have heard mixed things about this one have you read it let me know did you enjoy it do you think that I will enjoyed it enjoyed it well I enjoy it I've heard it compared to the snow child by a-1 IV which is what makes me hesitate because I didn't enjoy that one very much I found it a little bit twee aren't my fairy tale retellings to be very very dark not that that's entirely light-hearted but it just it wasn't it wasn't my cup of tea entirely have you read both of them do you think that comparison is fair but that was given me from Holly over awfully done design is this one by Patrick Gale called the place called winter I haven't read any Patrick Gale before and this seems like a good place to start it says Harry came has followed tradition at every step until an illicit affair forces him to abandon the golden suburbs of Edwardian England and to the town of winter and the newly colonized Canadian Prairies so isn't actually about winter but it is historical fiction and I always find that historical fiction is well suited to this time of year and folks that I love and have already read is tales from outer suburbia by Shaun tan it's a collection of illustrated short stories that use magical realism and a set inside a city or just outside of the city and then he's just released this new one which I want to read this winter which is called tales from the inner city so not the outskirts of the city now we're going right into the heart of the city and again this is filled with beautiful beautiful illustrations as well as his magical realist short stories which are for grownups and I look forward to diving into those or at least not necessarily for grownups but they're not for small children and and I also like to have some coffee table books for this time of year that are really lovely to dive into so there is what we see in the Stars and Illustrated tour of the night sky which has all of the different myths surrounding the constellations and this is a recommendation that I give to anybody it is the encyclopedia of early Earth it's a graphic novel by Isabel greenberg it is beautiful and it is all about different origin stories of the world so those are all the books I would recommend to pick up during winter time or at least some of them there are more on my shelves I could have mentioned and some books that I may pick up myself this winter as I said I'll link all of them in the description box down below how do you read any of these would you like to read any of these what are you planning to read over the next few months let me know also Harry Potter audiobooks always Harry Potter audiobooks had to get that one in there too I hope you guys have a great week and I'll speak to you very soon that's big stuff bye [Music]

Channel: Jen Campbell

Views: 11,041

Rating: 4.980392 out of 5

Keywords: Jen Campbell, winter reads, booktube

Id: wmZEC98S3oQ

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018