Hey, all–it’s only Thursday, but for some reason it’s feeling like Friday! We’re having our first cloudy, drippy day in weeks (sorry, all you Nor’easters!), and I’m actually wearing long sleeves. The warm, sunny weather has been great, but it’s boding not well for our summer water supply, so I’m actually pretty happy to have used my windshield wipers this morning.
Anyway, I’m feeling sort of lazy and snug, so I’m not going to bring out the big guns on writing theory today? Instead, how about a little conversation?
Do your reading habits change with the seasons? I always hear about beach reads (may I recommend the entire Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot?), but what about fireside reads? Couch-under-fleece-blanket reads? Let’s-not-get out-of-bed-yet-in-the-morning reads?
My son has started on the Lord of the Ring series (after I told him he could TOTALLY skip the Tom Bombadil section, because, really, everybody does!). To me, this is a perfect winter read–you’re inside, safe & sheltered, and–even if the power is out–at least you’re not headed toward Mordor. I’ve been doing my research reading with Jane Addams’ Twenty Years at Hull-House, which makes California winters, even in a stinky economy, look pretty warm and prosperous. And I just read a wonderful YA book called Need, by Carrie Jones, which is set in Maine and filled with seriously cold fingers and toes, snowshoe romance, and creepily dangerous pixies. (I fully reviewed Need on my other blog, here.) Yes, it had me looking over my shoulder into the “forest” around our house, as I read late into the night, but I was tucked safe into bed and pretty sure those were coyotes I was listening to.
When it’s cold, do you want to read about somewhere colder? Or do you hunt out palm trees and streaming sunshine, to counter the darkness inside? Share your favorite reads this winter, and let’s pass them around. We’re not done yet–remember, the groundhog saw his shadow!
Becky Levine 