2 Bewitching Books for Winter Weekends (and Other Must Reads)
These exquisitely written novels will delight
you on any night—but offer an especially fitting escape for a quiet
Sunday afternoon under a down comforter.
5 of 5
The Season of Migration
By Nellie Hermann
256 pages;
Straus and Giroux
This lyrical novel follows the years that Vincent van Gogh
spent as a preacher in a downtrodden village in Belgium, where 40-year-old men
work in the mines and footprints in the snow are lined with a black rim of coal
dust. Despite his best intentions, Van Gogh's relationship with 17-year-old
Angeline leads him to move from his comfortable, warm home to an abandoned hut—where
he must face a villagewide tragedy alone. The novel unfolds through letters to
his brother, Theo, and third-person passages set a year later—the
combination revealing the unexpected story of a man forced to question
everything he believes in. Along the way, look out for small, inspired delights
of language, such as when Van Gogh describes his brother's scent as "a
little sweet and a little musty, like a basket of raspberries shut in a cellar—each
a glittering ray of light in a vast and starry night."
— Stephanie Klose
Published 12/18/2014