Best winter reads 2017 – For your perusing pleasure
'You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.'
– C. S. Lewis.
Now that it's winter, we're inclined to agree with Mr Lewis. So indulge in our list of the best winter reads 2017 has to offer. We've chosen our favourite from the Man Booker shortlist, a chilling ghost story and Young Adult fiction that's been billed as the next Harry Potter.
It's a time for curling up and staying warm with nothing but the pages of your trusted companion for company. These recommendations will ensure that you pick a good one. Happy reading.
A fascinating read for feminists. Solnit, the feminist thinker who invented mansplaining, has released a great book of essays. The Mother of all Questions was actually published in spring this year, but her recent talk at the Southbank Centre has brought her to London's attention again.
With titles like 'A short happy recent history of the rape joke', this is a provocative read. The longest essay is an absorbing 'history of silence'. It's an angry battle cry that calls up thinkers from Bechdel to Woolf. Whilst 'quiet is sought', Solnit argues, silence is 'imposed' on women throughout history.
Solnit is angry, and well informed. In 'Men who explain Lolita to me' she likens rape's prevalence in literature – from Tess of the d'Ubervilles to Lolita – to 'book after book of castration scenes'. Not for a quiet night in, this is a book that will rile you up.
