So Her Crankiness is grumping about this thing called “winter.” Seems Mom’s kinda tired of the thing. She keeps saying stuff like, “Cold. Gray. Pouring rain. Dark too early. Let’s move to Miami!”

No clue what that means. But I thought today would be a good day to warm up some cozy reading suggestions. So I got my Thinking Cap on and came up with the following. (Okay, okay. Mom helped. A little. But it was mostly me.)

These cozy winter reading suggestions include books that are either set during winter or there’s plenty of snow and cold in the pages. So grab a hot cuppa, a warm blanket and find your next great winter read (Yes, we’ve read all of these):

11 Cozy Reads For Cold Winter Days

1. ❄The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Often described as a children’s story, this delightful tale about Narnia, the Pevensie children, and Aslan can be read on more than one level.

2. ❄The Great Alone – Kristin Hannah
Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

3. ❄Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
Set during the early 20th century, the story follows the titular Yuri Zhivago as he deals with revolution and social upheaval in his native Russia and a tumultuous love affair with the enigmatic Lara.

4. ❄The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
Times are dangerous in 1939 Germany. When Liesel’s foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel’s world is both opened up, and closed down. Intense, absorbing, and one of the most enduring stories of our time.

5. ❄Winterdance – Gary Paulsen
Authors first-hand account of his Iditarod run. Paulsen and his team of dogs endured snowstorms, frostbite, dogfights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, and hallucinations in the relentless push to go on. Map and color photographs.

6. ❄The Winter Garden – Kristin Hannah
When their beloved father falls ill, two estranged sisters find themselves together again, with their cold, disapproving mother, Anya. On his deathbed, their father extracts one last promise from the women in his life.

It begins with a mysterious love story that spans 65 years from frozen, war-torn Leningrad to modern-day Alaska.

7. ❄Brian’s Winter – Gary Paulsen
The third book in the Hatchet series of survival stories offers an alternate ending to Hatchet. Brian is not rescued and must continue to survive in the woods through the winter.

8. ❄The Last Leaf – O’Henry
Classic short story covers the experiences of two artists, Johnsy and Sue, when Johnsy falls ill with pneumonia.

9. ❄The Call of the Wild – Jack London
Based on London’s experiences as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness and his ideas about nature and the fight for survival in the frozen Alaskan Klondike.

10. ❄The Long Winter – Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Dakota Territory is hit hard by the brutal winter of 1880-1881. Laura and her fam face the winter as best they can. But blizzards have covered the town in snow that piles up to the rooftops, cutting their town off from supplies and trade. Will spring ever arrive?

11. ❄The Last Place on Earth – Roland Huntford
Fascinating – and tragic – account of the “race for the South Pole” between Norway’s Roald Amundsen and Great Britain’s Robert F. Scott.

What would you add?