The Spinoff members recommend their most comforting reads.

“Frost on the ground in Auckland today,” reported my colleague Ben Fagan. “Frost on the ground here, too,” I reported back from the South Coast of Wellington. We’re well over halfway through winter but the week’s temperatures can be technically described as bloody freezing. In preparation for this trying time we asked The Spinoff’s members to tell us about the book they turn to in the coldest months: the books that offer escape, comfort, and good old-fashioned hygge.

What makes a comforting book? For me it’s a book that feels like a warm blanket. A book that when I see the cover and open it up to those first, familiar sentences my entire body immediately relaxes. For me that book is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. It’s written as a diary which is intimate and gossipy and dramatic. It’s full of character and delicious plot and kindly Vicars. It’s also a novel about craving comfort both material and emotional: getting close to the fire in vast and breezy castle; dying dresses green to make up for the fact there’s no money for new clothes; making food stretch as far as possible; dreaming of towels and silk and sunlight; needing a sister and a father and a lover and a confidant. It’s a coming-of-age masterpiece that I never get tired of and that never gets tired of me: no matter how dismal my wintry mood.

Thanks to our bookish members for recommending the following stellar list of books to draw warmth from while we wait for the days to grow longer, and the ground to de-frost and the mercury to rise. / Claire Mabey

Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent

If you have any concerns that you’re suffering from seasonal affective disorder, read Hannah Kent’s memoir about her relationship with Iceland. It will make New Zealand in winter feel like a balmy tropical paradise. It recounts her experience in the far north of Iceland as an exchange student from Australia to her later trips when she was writing Burial Rites about the last woman executed in Iceland in 1830. / Emma S

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

This book covered the entire century I was born in, and still feel part of. Like, last century! But it’s a universal story of an individual life in exhilarating and vaguely comprehensible times. / Rupert Watson

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

Imagine a world where people have learned to get along in harmony with nature. It’s not impossible, but it might need some sort of shattering transition to make it happen. In this world that’s what happened a few centuries ago, and the story centres around Dex (the monk) and Mosscap (the robot) and their meeting and eventual friendship. It’s a beautifully written short novel: hopeful, moving and memorable. / Margo MacGillivray

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

Although many shy away from the sheer size of this book, having that much story to submerge yourself in for months is ideal over winter. And it’s set in India, so you can pretend you’re warm the whole time you’re reading. My favourite thing about this book however is that it is basically a super-sized Jane Austen novel with splendidly clever verse and a 1950s Indian setting; a blissful trip of a read which I am always bereft at finishing. It is the perfect companion for the cold months. / Alison Sandle

Beats of the Pa’u by Maria Samuela

By and large my fiction reading responds to a need to understand our world rather than a wish for escapism and comfort, but I can report on a book I read two years ago and that readers may find both moving and enlightening. Beats of the Pa’u is a collection of short stories by Maria Samuela. Samuela is a New Zealander of Cook Islands heritage, and her stories take place in Aotearoa, from the mid-1950s to present time, and within this Pasifika community. The story that gives the book its title is my favourite. Through the main characters, a young girl, her boyfriend and the girl’s mother, we’re given a glimpse into the values of Samuela’s community, the culmination of which might surprise the reader. / Marie Duhamel

Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry

Sarah Perry [author of The Essex Serpent) writes about the death of her father-in-law. She brings him to life – this book is a really keeper. [For a full review this one on The Guardian is wonderful.] / Linda Burgess

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

It’s OK to be antisocial sometimes and to prefer the company of animals to that of humans. I find that this novel by a Nobel Prize winner set in the cold of Polish winter is about as comforting as cranking the electric blanket to 11/10 – but it doesn’t overstay its welcome in the same way as frying your butt does. Maybe that is because it’s so relatable, or maybe because it’s so forgiving to its audience and contains heavy loads of laugh out loud linguistic humour? / Lucas

The Bear and The Nightingale by Katherine Arden

It’s the epitome of a winter read – full of snowscapes and darkness and mystery and magic. The characters are complex and easy to care about, and the story perfectly balances the unknown and mystical and unsettling with scenes that are deeply familiar and comforting. It’s the literary equivalent of sitting by a crackling fire while an icy southerly whistles outside. / Sonya

The Book of Delights by Ross Gay

A poet’s project to attend to delight tunes in to the big and little things that delight him. Far from a soft apolitical consideration of delight, Gay’s essays are politically engaged, funny, sometimes sad, but always insightful. A beautiful invitation to become more present and aware, consider how delight emerges in the everyday and how we might cultivate more of it. / Neera Jain

The Innocents by Michael Crummey

You need to read this near a log fire under a stack of blankets. It’s set in Newfoundland in the mid-19th century and tell the story of two orphaned children trying to survive a life of unbelievable hardships. He uses extraordinarily beautiful prose to describe the landscapes and the struggles and I bloody loved it! He is not an author I have read before and I’ve promptly read all his others – fortunately he’s prolific! / Marianne

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

In a science fiction world where “Fireflies” collides with “Mass Effect”, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet follows Rosemary as she joins the multi-species crew of the Wayfarer. Like “Mass Effect”, each crew member has their own history and story to explore. Like “Firefly”, the crew gets dragged on different missions – and while there is an overall plot driving things forward, it’s there to serve a fantastic character-driven story that feels like a loving, warm hug. / Tyler Baikie

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

As a fantasy fan, I’ve been trying to turn my reality-loving friends. This book does just that. It has adventure, romance, intrigue, action and the prose is beautiful. Like poetry but not too flowery or verbose. Just right. It follows a super talented orphaned boy (who is deeply flawed) on his journey of hardship and discovery. Sounds like every fantasy book? I know. But this one is different, I promise. / Asia Rattenbury

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

I know it’s very basic of me, and yes, it’s just been adapted for TV. However: if you love classical literature, or you were thinking of re-reading Jane Austen but fancy a change, this is a great choice. It starts with Pride and Prejudice from Mary’s perspective, including answering the question I always had, which was “why doesn’t Mary marry Mr Collins?” But Hadlow picks up where Austen finishes, and that’s where it gets really good. Like Austen, it’s romantic without being a classic romance. Where it really shines is in giving Mary character development that feels meaningful, and happiness that feels earned. / Ellen Boucher

The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

Not magical realism but realism and magic, sometimes walking in lockstep, sometimes diverging. A redemption narrative, a ghost story, a love story, a family saga in the making, set in the wider environment of Covid-era Minneapolis, the smaller environment of an independent bookstore. Erdrich has given us another memorable female heroine (and a handful of female villains), alongside a cast of well-developed supporting characters – including herself. I loved the book for all of the above, and especially because it was a reassuring reminder that there’s a community of people who engage with books like I do. / Andrea Sisk King

The Silver Book by Olivia Laing

It is a wondrous look backwards at the filmic works of Fellini and Pasolini. It is a contemporary homoerotic story. It has very interesting points to make about today’s world and fascism. / Lynn Dallison

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

You asked for comfort, I give you comfort! This series is such a delight because the characters are so likeable. It follows four retirees as they solve cold cases – what’s not comforting about that? A super easy to read series with light humour and escapism. / Pearl

The Wych Elm by Tana French

Any of Tana French’s novels will do for me as a comforting read, because her books are both very readable and incredibly well written. The Wych Elm is probably my favourite. It’s a crime story, in which many closely-connected, privileged characters are implicated. It’s sharp, lyrical, and very astute about the psychology of repression and memory. / Heidi Thomson