Winter is a perfect time to find new books and dive into new genres of reading. Here are a few of my favorite reads, that expanded my horizons in my everyday reading.
The Midnight Library is a story of a woman named Nora Seed who is in her thirties. She has an overwhelming attack of hopelessness and in her moment of sadness, she comes across the Midnight Library. Which leads her to go on a journey to rediscover herself. Inside the library there are books, but the books are not stereotypical books; they represent a portal into another version of her life. As she jumps in and out of these different lives, Nora finds herself and discovers the meaning of her life.
Dune is a story that is set about 20,000 years in the future. All of the humans are spread throughout space. The main character is Paul Atreides, heir to Duke Leto Atreides. Dune follows Paul as he leads his family to relocate to the planet Arrakis which is the only source of the spice melange. Spice Melange is a drug that makes it possible for Navigators to guide ships. This leads to a lot of confrontation that changes humanity.
No Longer Human is in the perspective of a young man named Oba Yozo who is caught between the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and new western ideas. He has a seemingly normal life, but he doesn’t think he is capable of understanding humans. Oba Yozo slowly becomes an outsider which leads to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Then he begins to take note of the casual cruelties of life and human connection.
The Four Winds takes place in Texas in 1934 during the Great Depression. The main character Elsa must make a choice to stay to fight for her land and her community or to leave to go to California to look for a better life. While searching for the American Dream, a painful journey unfolds that is very exciting but exhausting for Elsa. It is a mixture of fiction and fact of the historical time period that brings the story to life.
The Viking Journal 