One of the things I was most looking forward to about 2017 was that I would be finishing up five years of undergrad and post-grad degrees, leaving a lot more time for pleasure reading rather than tomes of scholarly articles and textbooks. I’ve always been a book fanatic, finding the ease of escaping into new worlds and scenarios to be therapeutic. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve found it harder to get into and stay engaged in a book. If you are burned out from work, busy with school or simply finding your attention span is more fit for Instagram than novels, picking up a book might be the last thing on your mind, as it was for me. But this year I challenged myself to get back into the habit. I set a goal to read at least a book a month - the best resolution I’ve ever made/achieved (and even surpassed!). With the holidays around the corner and an ever-growing list of to-dos, I challenge you to set some time aside for yourself. To relax, to escape, and to cozy up. Grab some eggnog and maybe one of these books that I wholeheartedly recommend and settle in for a long winter’s read.

Z by Therese Anne Fowler

You’ve likely heard of famed novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald or are familiar with his works, American literature classics including This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned and The Great Gatsby. But, have you heard of his wife, the bold and intemperate golden girl of Montgomery society? Z is a historical fiction that dives into the private life of Zelda Fitzgerald, her contributions to F. Scott’s career, and their excessive and turbulent marriage, plagued by alcoholism and infidelity, which led them to become emblems of the Jazz Age.  

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Doerr delicately humanizes the story of a blind French girl, Marie-Laure and a brilliant German boy, Werner, who’s paths collide in occupied France, WW2. Werner grows up in a poor and bleak mining town in Germany where he becomes enthralled with science, engineering and radios, leading to his recruitment in the Hitler Youth. Marie-Laure is raised by a kind and patient single father who teaches her to move blindly through the streets of Paris, until one day they must flee to the French coastal town, Saint-Malo.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Amor Towles truly stole my heart with his writing. It is lively and bright, with characters who feel like they may be living and breathing in the world at this moment. A Gentleman in Mosow tells the story of Count Rostov who is sentenced to house arrest in the Hotel Metropol, just across the square from Moscow’s Kremlin. While the Count adjusts to his new life and circumstance, Russian history unfolds outside the doors of the Metropol, chalk-full of revolutionaries, Bolsheviks, Stalinists and the new Soviet order.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

New York Newsday said it best when they wrote “some people are born storytellers. Some lives are worth telling. The best memoirs happen when these two conditions converge.” The Glass Castle is a raw, honest and likely cathartic retelling of a childhood lived in poverty and hardship in various states of the USA. What I liked best about this book was that Walls’, though entitled to bitterness, tells this story as if she was a child - with love for and faith in her parents and a security that they loved her as wildly and truly as they could.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Rules of Civility is a beautiful story, told with all the pangs and heartbreak that come with nostalgia. The novel is mostly set in 1940s New York, where you are first introduced to Katey Kontent, a young and green Manhattanite who moves into a women’s only boarding house where she meets her new roommate Eve. Eve and Katey are determined to get swept up in the magic and mythology of the golden age of Manhattan. When they meet handsome debonair Tinker Grey on New Year’s Eve in a Village jazz club, that is exactly what happens.

Red Notice by Bill Browder

Autobiographies aren’t for everyone, I find they can be hard to get into and lack the descriptive storytelling that I find enjoyable. However, Browder’s story is an exception. It is so gripping it is hard to believe it is not fiction. Browder is the founder of Hermitage Capital, one of the first and most successful hedge funds to specialize in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Browder’s business success in Russia subsequently leads to thrilling and terrifying exposure to Russian politics, criminal enterprise and systemic corruption in Moscow.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill

The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a devastating and beautiful book, told in the tones of magical realism and centered around the lives of two orphans growing up in Depression-era Montreal. Pierrot and Rose are unique children with an ability to turn any crowd into a rapt audience. Their lives take them from the highest highs of reputable society to the dark and enchanting lures of the underworld. It was exciting for me to read this book and have a Canadian city at the center - better yet, depicted as a glamorous and bustling epicenter, status usually reserved for New York or great European capitals.