Winter reads Guardian writers choose favourite books that match the season to the story
Winter read: What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge Sarah Crown Sarah Crown: A girl's journey from sweltering midwestern plains to the freezing east coast suggests cold can spark an intellectual awakening
Winter read: Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Dan Holloway: It may be set in permanently sunny Los Angeles, but things don't get much icier than inside its characters' hearts
Winter reads: Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant An exceedingly sharp satire of flexible French morals among different classes during the 19th-century German occupation
Winter reads: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin This Hugo-winning tale of an icebound planet is as remarkable for its subtley revolutionary portrait of a world in which gender is not fixed as it is for Le Guin's chilling descriptions of whirling snow and bitter cold
Winter read: The Midnight Bell by Patrick Hamilton David Barnett: The pub at the centre of Patrick Hamilton's The Midnight Bell is the perfect haven on a winter's evening
Winter reads: The Glamour of the Snow by Algernon Blackwood Claire Armitstead Claire Armitstead: This story of a writer drawn to a ghostly ice-skater weaves a compelling spell, and will leave you very relieved to be indoors
Winter read: The Castle by Franz Kafka William Burrows Reader William Burrows finds that K's struggle with bureaucracy is only the surface of a story that plunges into the deep end of pain, aloneness and the longing for companionship
Winter reads: Ice by Anna Kavan Hannah Freeman A frozen post-nuclear dystopia is the setting for this raw, brutal tale. It may not cheer you up, but it will compel your attention
Winter reads: A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin Carol Rumens Carol Rumens finds glimmers of a real-life romance in Larkin's mysterious tale of an exiled woman in wartime Britain
Winter reads: The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico Lisa Allardice It may not be free from sentimentality, but this sad, sweet tale has an elemental power that makes it soar
Winter reads: The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder Alison Gibbs Reader Alison Gibbs identifies the root of her daydreams of America in winter in Laura Ingalls Wilder's chilly but cheering descriptions of snow, ice and Christmas dinners in Dakota
Winter reads: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann WB Gooderham This classic novel of career invalids snowbound in the Swiss Alps is much more fun than its reputation suggests
Winter reads: The Bear's Winter House Paul Laity Quentin Blake and John Yeoman's tale of keeping out the cold is as warm and welcoming as its hero's lair
Winter reads: Myths of the Norsemen by Roger Lancelyn Green Richard Lea This re-telling of the Norse sagas delivers an icy gust from the distant kingdom of childhood
Winter reads: Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy The lethal cold is clearly freighted with symbolism in this wintry parable, but it is realised with tangible bite
Winter reads: My Ántonia by Willa Cather Xan Brooks A story of the hardships of a bitter winter in the American west, this is also a stirring tribute to unfreezable human spirit
Winter reads: The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy M Boston Brenda Croskery Longlands Reader Brenda Croskery Longlands enjoys the Christmases past evoked by this magical story of an ancient manor house
Winter reads: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami Damien G Walter This potent rite-of-passage tale offers readers some useful pointers on keeping the heart warm in allegorically wintry times
Winter reads: Orlando by Virginia Woolf Sam Jordison Sam Jordison: The unforgettable depiction of the devastatingly 'Great Frost' contains some of Woolf's warmest writing
Winter reads: The Terror by Dan Simmons Alison Flood Alison Flood: A chilling speculation on the fate of Franklin's ill-fated expedition to the Northwest Passage, with added horror to thoroughly freeze your blood
About 21 results for Winter reads 
