Winter is the time when we get the least daylight. But at least we get some. In Scandinavia, some people have developed ‘reindeer vision’ to see in the dark, because at certain times, they get no daylight at all. These books to read on winter days, are ideal when it’s cold and rainy or snowy outside, and you need some good sofa or armchair books to while away the winter nights. Winter snow globes contain toxic (to pets and children) antifreeze. Bin responsibly, and don’t buy them.
The Nature of Winter is a beautiful book by Scottish nature writer Jim Crumley. Dark days of wild storms give way to the perfect glistening stillness of frost-encrusted lansdcapes. Experience the chaos and quiet solitude of nature’s rest period. He bears witness to the lives of remarkable animals such as golden eagles, red deer and even whales, as they battle intemperate weather and the turbulence of climate change. Rosemary Goring of Herald writes that ‘Crumley has earned himself the enviable position of our foremost nature commentator – a true winter’s tale’.
Spicy Winter Pear Smoothie (Planted & Picked)
The Met Office states that winter has two possible start dates: depending on meteorological or astronomical (the earth’s orbit direction that begins on the winter Solstice on 21 or 22 December). The fixed date is usually 1 December, with colder temperatures (the winter of 1963 remains the coldest on records since 1740 – literary buffs may remember this was the icy cold winter when American poet Sylvia Plath committed suicide in her London flat).
Years ago, people were counted in their years by how many winters there had been (so if you were 2, you would be ‘2 winters old’. Above the Arctic Circle, there is such a long winter that reindeer have developed adapted retina tissue so they can see in the dark.
Books for Winter Days
- Wintering is the story of how Stephen Rutt and his partner moved to a house in Dumfries, and as they settled into their new home, thousands of pink-footed geese were arriving on Solway Firth from the Arctic Circle, to make it their winter home. And so begins this extraordinary odyssey. From his new home in the north to the further afield wide open spaces of the South, Stephen traces the lives and habits of five of the most common species of goose in the UK. With an expert eye and clear elegant prose, he paints perfect portraits of these large, startling and co-operative birds.
- Winter. It’s bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer’s leaves? Gone. The world shrinks. The sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. Life matches up to the toughest of seasons. In this second novel, Ali casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory & warmth. Its taproots deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It’s the season that teaches us survival.
