Large parts of the northern hemisphere are covered in snow. What better reason to sit down with a blanket and hot tea and enjoy 10 gems from our catalog.
Wearing socks and scarves is always a good idea to keep warm. Why not make them yourself, using our recording of Cornelia Mee’s Exercises in Knitting? Our volunteers even modernized the instructions and tried out the examples themselves – have a look!
What to do when housebound because of a snowstorm, and knitting is not your thing? Why not solve a mystery like little Dorothy Dale does together with her friends in her Queer Holidays, written by Margaret Penrose.
When you’re ready to get out again, it’s nice to explore the wintery landscape. No need to go as far as Robert F. Scott who wanted to be the first person at the South Pole. He arrived there on Jan. 17, 1912, beaten by 35 days by Amundsen, and his entire party perished on the way home. Read all about what became Scott’s last expedition in the first volume of his journals.
On the other end of the planet, two men end up alone to struggle for survival between the icebergs of the arctic. It does not help if one of them seeks to kill the other. Will they see the one woman they both love again? Find out in Wilkie Collins’ chilling novel The Frozen Deep.
Love is the driving force behind many things, and Valentine’s Day is the perfect day to express it! Read all about the love stories of Anthony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Marie Walewska and many other couples in Lyndon Orr’s Famous Affinities of History.
Sometimes tragedies turn into wonderful love stories. What starts out with betrayal, death and abandonment ends “happily ever after” – not without the necessary Shakespearian twists of course – in The Winter’s Tale – one of our dramatic works.
To move back to our icy theme, we recommend the chilly love poem “Wind and Window Flower” written by Robert Frost and contained in his first collection of poems called A Boy’s Will.
We can now go back into the cold – into The Fur Country, to be precise. Jules Verne describes the adventures of some Hudson Bay Company officers, who establish a fort in the arctic. Everything seems idyllic – until the earthquake… This recording is also available in French.
William C. Russell was a sailor turned journalist turned writer. Many of his novels center around his experiences as a sailor, and the awakening of The Frozen Pirate can only lead to great adventures involving shipwrecks and treasure…
After all these chilling moments, it’s time to think of spring. Follow four ladies of good British society as they plan and finally experience an Enchanted April in Italy, in Elizabeth von Arnim’s novel.
Enjoy our books – and your tea!