People have different reactions to the winter season, some like its chilly atmosphere, and there are others who wish they were somewhere warmer. This classic booklist has a book for everyone of every genre; whether you like adventure, horror, fiction or nonfiction.
For those who like travel stories based on reality this one is for you, Jon Krakauer’s 1996 Into the Wild, is a story of yearning and passion for the outdoors. You join Christopher Johnson McCandless’s journey across the country to find authenticity. In the beginning of the book, McCandless gives away his entire college fund to charity and abandoning his car, starts off on his hitchhiking odyssey. This book will give you an appreciation of nature and leave you slightly melancholic.
Another counterculture novel is 1957’s On the Road by Jack Kerouac. In the quintessential beatnik novel, you join Kerouac and his friends on their philosophy drug-induced treks. You see the supreme joyous events held with friendship, jazz, and dancing but also the darker side of drug use and heartbreak. It’s the human search for meaning and one of the best American novels. This book will leave you saddened and nostalgic.
On a different note, if you’re looking for a nice long read during quarantine, the 1967 magic realism novel One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez will satisfy you. This novel is all about the Buendía family, but not conventionally, each generation seen in the book becomes increasingly more selfish and solitary. Children take on the sins of their fathers and imperialism begins to take over the small town. The dream-like stream of consciousness adds a perfect touch of beauty to the loosely historical setting. This book will leave you pensive.
A much shorter tale is the 1928 horror short story The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. The suspenseful and maddening dance together as the narrative unfurls to the reader. Icons and notes about a grotesque creature are found and soon the police are investigating a cult that believes in the creature. More discoveries take place and tragedy follows until the climatic and terrifying ending occurs. This book will leave you paranoid.
Blindness by José Saramago is a 1995 post-apocalyptic novel that aided Saramago in winning Nobel Prize for Literature. The oddly written book lacks a place, many names, and punctuation, adding to the delirium and confusion of the setting. The story is of an unexplained epidemic of blindness affecting nearly everyone, breaking down society to its bare bones as some become family to aid each other and some degenerate. This book will leave you introspective and breathless.
Lastly, the 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley is a must-read. Like The Call of Cthulhu based on a dream Shelly had she produced one of the most withstanding science fiction/horror novels ever. The horror of the novel is met with its humanity as well as Frankenstein the monster reckons what they are. The Creature is articulate and wants happiness only, something his creator denied him when he cast him away. The Creature continues a search for his maker and in pursuit, they each think the other is evil and everything in each other’s lives falls apart. This book will leave you lonely.
