Fantastic Tales to Cozy Up with This Winter

Chicago's winters can be borderline cruel and unusual; this opinion of course coming from someone like myself who absolutely detest frigid cold weather. On those snowy nights when the temperature has plunged to 18 or below, you will find me curled up on my sofa, wrapped in my comfy blue robe, sipping green tea sweetened with Agave Nectar while deeply engaged in a fantastic tale. Sounds good, huh? Why not join me. Take a trip to your local library, bookstore or online bookseller to scoop up these great reads. Happy Holidays!

These novels, from some of the world's most gifted writers, top my must-read list for this winter.

A Golden Age by Tahmina Anam

As Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she may be forgiven for feeling happy. Today she will throw a party for her son and daughter. In the garden of the house she has built, her roses are blooming; her children are almost grown up; and beyond their doorstep, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air.

But none of the guests at Rehana's party can foresee what will happen in the days and months that follow. For this is East Pakistan in 1971, a country on the brink of war. And this family's life is about to change forever. ~ www.tahmima.com

A Mercy by Toni Morrison

"The stories in A Mercy are as layered and contested as the barely mapped topology traversed by its characters. Set in the 1680s, when this country's reliance on slavery as an economic engine was just beginning, A Mercy explores the repercussions of an enslaved mother's desperate act: She offers her small daughter to a stranger in payment for her master's debt." ~Neda Ulaby -Read more at NPR.org

Half of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor's beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna's twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and they must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another. ~ www.halfofayellowsun.com

Trading Dreams At Midnight by Diane McKinney-Whetstone

"From Homer to Amy Tan, the multi-generational family saga is a time-tested vessel for the exploration of individual personalities. For every noble son, there’s another who steals his rival’s wife, and for every daughter who takes after her powerhouse mom, there’s another who’s inexplicably meek. Whatever their setting, and whatever their arc, the best of these stories wrestle with the questions of inheritance and the peculiar ways in which we differ from our kin." ~Katherine Hill -The Pennsylvania Gazette