Sooo, autumn is my favourite season. I love the rain, colourful trees, and how your home and every café instantly becomes very cozy. Which makes you instantly want to sink into an armchair, wrap yourself up in a blanket like a nice little burrito, with a nice warm cup of something and, for me, a good book.
So here is a selection of books that create a cozy (and perhaps slightly gloomy) atmosphere.
Although this book is not particularly cozy, it is very automny in a "dark-rainy-coblewalk-and-a-nice-coat" kind of way. It is a story about a group of 5 students that study ancient Greek in Hampden University.
It is told in first person narrative, from the perspective of a young man named Richard, who just enrolled into this uni and became the 6th. From the very first line of the book (literally), you know that one of them died, but you aren't told why or any of the important details.
Then, the story goes back to the very beginning and you slowly get to know what happened. A lot of this book feels like a crazy dream/nightmare; the other parts have interesting character dynamics and a sense of belonging.
If you read M. L. Rio's If We Were Villains and liked it, you should totally read this one (and vice versa). They are similar in their atmosphere, group of people, and even some of the characters, but at the same time so different.
A book about a small, cute, café in a back alley. The twist: you can order a coffee that sends you back in time, with two rules: you have to return before the coffee gets cold and you cannot move from your seat.
There are four different stories, about four different customers, all having their specific reason to take the risk and go back.
Honestly, I can't explain why this is autumny, but I just get that vibe from it. Perhaps it is the same feeling of melancholy, something dying.
It is a story about a German doctor, illegally performing operations in Paris, and Joan Madou, a girl he falls in love with. His life is full of struggles, clinging onto hope, life and love.
(my favourite book by this author: Three Comrades)
Have you ever heard the phrase "oh captain, my captain"? Well, this is the book version (a novelization of the famous film starring Robin Williams, and written by Tom Schulman).
A very short book, one evening is enough if you feel like it. When you start reading it, it looks like a story about teenagers in a boarding school, with problems like strict discipline and mean teachers. But in a split second this book becomes very serious and is about the conflict of passion, strict rules, pressure and expectations.
It all starts when they get a new English professor, Mr John Keating…
I really like the way it was written. It has three different perspectives from three different characters: two in the present, Henry and Martha, and one 100 years in the past. So, as a reader, you know more than each character does (and yell at the book 'noo don't do this').
In the present, Henry is looking for the unpublished book by Emile Brontë and tracking down a hidden bookshop – somehow, the lives of the other two get involved in this adventure. It has elements of mystery, a lot of linguistic facts (both real and fictional) and the main characters are complex and well-developed, it's very interesting to get to know them.
A very quiet and cozy book that feels like going on a solo date. It describes a girl, Takako, lonely and hurt, who runs away from her problems to a town with a huge number of bookshops (honestly the dream), and helps her uncle at his bookshop.
She starts to enjoy reading and gets a slightly different view on life. Slowly and quietly, her life begins to change.
The characters are very, very well-written and a lot of them have really interesting backstories (the reveals go hard).
Bonus: I know I've already recommended Thursday Murder Club in the detective books, but it is so so so cozy and honestly my comfort book.
