Once the holiday decorations come down, there's still a long stretch of winter to read through. Winter book club books lean into the season: snowbound settings, cold-weather mysteries and long nights that make a 500-page novel feel reasonable.
Here are the winter reads Bookclubs members meet about most, grouped into historical fiction, snowed-in thrillers, literary picks and a little nonfiction. Planning a December meeting instead? Start with our Christmas book club books or Hanukkah books for adults.
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Historical Fiction Set in Winter
Frontier winters, frozen rivers and an Arctic village. These are long, absorbing reads for the coldest months, and The Frozen River is one of the most-read books on Bookclubs.
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The Frozen River Inspired by the real diary of 18th-century midwife Martha Ballard, this mystery opens when a man is found frozen in Maine's Kennebec River, and Martha's careful records may be the only way to learn what happened to him. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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The Great Alone In 1974, a volatile Vietnam veteran moves his wife and teenage daughter off the grid in Alaska, where the long, dark winter turns out to be less threatening than he is. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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The Mercies In 1617, a sudden storm kills all forty men of an Arctic village in Norway. The women learn to survive on their own, until a man arrives to root out witchcraft. Inspired by a real-life witch hunt. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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Snow Falling on Cedars In 1954, as snow falls on an island in Puget Sound, a Japanese-American fisherman stands trial for murder, with the wartime internment of Japanese Americans hanging over the courtroom. Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
Snowed-In Thrillers and Mysteries
Nothing raises the stakes like a storm that cuts everyone off. Pick one of these when your club wants something fast and twisty after the holidays.
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The Crash Eight months pregnant and running from her life, Tegan drives straight into a blizzard and ends up stranded in rural Maine, where the people who take her in may be more dangerous than the storm. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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One by One A tech startup's team retreat at a luxury ski chalet in the French Alps turns deadly when an avalanche cuts them off from the world. Stephen King compared it to Agatha Christie at her best. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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No Exit Stranded by a blizzard at a Colorado rest stop, college student Darby Thorne spots a kidnapped girl locked in a van in the parking lot. One of the strangers waiting out the storm with her put the girl there. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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The Winter People West Hall, Vermont, has a long history of strange disappearances, starting with a woman found dead behind her farmhouse in 1908. A century later, a young woman's mother vanishes, and the old legends start to look real. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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Smilla's Sense of Snow When her six-year-old Inuit neighbor falls to his death from a Copenhagen rooftop, Smilla refuses to believe it was an accident. She saw his tracks in the snow, and she knows snow. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
Winter Book Club Books for Long, Cozy Nights
Slower winter reads with a little magic or romance, for a club that would rather talk about characters than twists.
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The Snow Child In 1920s Alaska, a childless homesteading couple builds a girl out of the season's first snow. The next morning she's gone, and a wild little girl starts appearing in the woods. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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The Bear and the Nightingale At the edge of the Russian wilderness, where winter lasts most of the year, a willful young woman is drawn into a world of spirits, ancient evils and the winter-king Frost. The first book in the Winternight Trilogy. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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Winter Garden When their father falls ill, two very different sisters come home to the family apple orchard and finally hear their distant mother's story from her past in Russia. Hannah asks whether you can really know yourself if you don't know your mother. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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Beartown Everything in a struggling forest town rides on its junior ice hockey team, until a crime after the big win forces everyone to choose a side. Now an HBO series. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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One Day in December Laurie sees the man she's sure is the one through a bus window on a snowy December day and spends a year looking for him, only to meet him again as her best friend's new boyfriend. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
Winter Nonfiction
One book about rest and one about survival, both set in the coldest season.
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Wintering When her husband fell ill and her own health pushed her out of a demanding job, Katherine May looked to how people and nature get through winter. A gentle book about rest and retreat for a January meeting. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |
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Endurance In 1915, Ernest Shackleton's ship was trapped and crushed by Antarctic pack ice, leaving his crew of 28 stranded. The true story of how every one of them survived. Buy the Book Add to Shelf |