Six books for long winter evenings
Ukrainian classics, a couple of modern novels and two books worth rereading. No rankings — just the ones that keep you warm.
Winter reading is different: slower, deeper, with pauses for tea. Here are six books we return to at exactly this time of year.
Ukrainian prose
Tiger Trappers by Ivan Bahrianyi
An adventure novel you read in one breath: an escape, the taiga, hunting and a human dignity that cannot be broken. Perfect for an evening with a snowstorm outside.
The City by Valerian Pidmohylnyi
A young man from a village arrives in 1920s Kyiv and learns to become a city person. A novel about ambition, love and the price of a dream — strikingly modern.
Intermezzo by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky
A short story you can read in one evening and think about for a week. About being tired of people, and how the quiet of the fields heals.
Voroshilovgrad by Serhiy Zhadan
A story about coming home, friendship and resistance. Read it slowly: almost every page is a poem.
World classics
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
The saga of one family where miracles are ordinary and time moves in circles. Keep a sheet with the family tree handy — you’ll need it.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The shortest book on the list and maybe the strongest. About patience, loneliness, and how defeat is not always losing.
The best winter book is the one after which you don’t want to pick up the next one straight away.
From a reader’s letter
1 comment
Hadn’t heard of The City before — just ordered the English translation.