The Snowmageddon 2013 Book List

Boston Common and the Massachusetts State House, February 1932 

I asked some literary friends to help compile a list of snow-appropriate books. What do you read when the downy banks recline hip-deep upon simpering cars and isolate city walks?

• Harmonium by Wallace Stevens
  Purely for that great cold-weather poem, “The Snow Man”.
• Selected Poems by Paul Celan
  There's something deadly and claustrophobic about Celan's verse that seems to perfectly match that particular “Overlook Hotel” feeling.
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Nothing keeps you warm like a boozy, moody romp through Jazz age New York.
• Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
  Frankly: Russia. Moscow, St. Petersburg, fuzzy hats, icy trains—is it ever not snowing there?
• Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnick
  Quoth The Guardian review, “The idea of dreaming of a white Christmas may well take on a more apocalyptic cast in years to come.” Super, thanks guys.
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
  You're not leaving home for two days: this might be the only possible way you'll actually read this doorstopper. If all else fails it makes an epic scotch coaster.