If you’re looking for some reading to inspire your own writing this winter, you might like to consider some of these books, which all feature wintery landscapes and isolated characters experiencing their own personal lockdowns:
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
Read an extract here.
I adore Agatha Christie’s Poirot – a curious mixture of foreignness, arrogance, and chivalry. This novel depicts one of the Belgian detective’s most famous cases, which occurs when the eponymous train is stuck in a snow drift on its way from Istanbul to Calais. One day, I hope to enjoy the luxury of a trip on the Orient Express, hopefully murder-free.
Wuthering heights, by Emily Bronte
Read it online, here.
This epistolary novel covers many years in the lives of its characters, rather than just winter. However, the bleakness of the moors reflects my current mood, and the remoteness may appeal to some in our current world situation, so it deserves a place on this list.
The Outrun, Amy Liptrot
Read the opening, here.
If you’re in need of some hope, this is the memoir of a woman returning to her hometown of Orkney, in order to remove herself from temptations, and recover from her addictions. Nature and solitude support her recovery, and she spends a winter on a smaller Scottish island. The descriptions are wonderful, and the connection she achieves with nature may inspire you, as it did me.
What are your winter reading recommendations?
Mina Ma 
I don’t know if ‘winter’ is the best word but Dark Matter by Michelle Paver is set in the Arctic winter of the late 1930s. A gripping thriller about shortening days and encroaching perpetual night.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/dark-matter/michelle-paver/9781409121183
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Thank you! That book’s on my very long wishlist!
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