The Best Books to Get You Through the Blah Days of Winter
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Few things warm up a winter night like a glass of whiskey and good books. If you’re looking for true crime, underdog stories, or ecological deep-dives, we’ve got you covered with some must-read books sure to transport you somewhere far less cold. Here are four rollicking, fast-reading tales to help you power through the blah days of winter.
This true-crime thriller starts in 2011, at the beginning of a two-year FBI investigation into a Chinese-born scientist’s agricultural espionage. Mara Hvistendahl brings a shrewd eye to racism and corporate abetment within the FBI as she confronts the bureau’s part in protecting Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer in a global war of counterintelligence, trade secrets, and corn.
S.M. Hulse’s urgent, timely novel isolates Josephine Faber in a small rural Montana town, just as the government prepares to repossess her family home. Jo, who was paralyzed at age 10, is cared for by her older brother, Samuel. But Samuel falls in with a group of neo-Nazis and, when faced with the loss of his home, decides to bomb the district courthouse, sending the community reeling and Jo searching for answers.
If you thought that Marley & Me needed more surfing and rock climbing, then you’re in luck. Ben Moon’s Denali follows Moon as his cross-country dream to be an adventure photographer gets brutally interrupted by colorectal cancer. Stripped of everything else, Moon relies on his dog, Denali, to get him through. Then, over the next decade, he returns the favor when Denali gets cancer, too.
In the 1990s, the elusive Florida panther was pushed to the brink of extinction by hunting, suburban expansion, and Domino’s Pizza. In Cat Tale,Tampa Bay Times reporter Craig Pittman dives deep into the truly wild experiments that managed to save the Florida panther from being completely wiped out.