New in Paperback: The Perfect Books to Curl Up With this Winter

While summer novels made us dream about our next Caribbean vacation, and fall cookbooks taught us how to make that delicious holiday fudge, the winter is the perfect time for those thick, satisfying reads you’ve been putting off all year.

You know the type: These are the books that you can disappear into for a few hours, curled up in your favorite chair, listening to the backdrop of rain and your cat purring, and learn something new about the world. Books where you’re constantly nodding your head and “hmm”-ing every time you read another interesting fact. The type of book that annoys your family and friends, as you keep interrupting them every few minutes, saying, Hey, listen to this! Did you know that…

David Douglas, the naturalist namesake of the infamous Douglas fir, thought roasted bald eagle was “very good eating”?

Or that…

His death–via a freak bull-attack–is shrouded in mystery and murder conspiracy theories?

Or that…

Seattle doctors don’t really just flirt and bicker like they do on TV?

So if you’re itching for your first rewarding winter read (and want to learn some fun facts to impress guests at your next cocktail party), try one of these books:

Like Grey’s Anatomy for the literary, The House of Hope and Fear gives the real behind-the-scenes look at Seattle’s biggest hospital. Audrey Young chronicles her years as an attending physician at Harborview Medical Center as she deals with the ecstasy and frustration of trying to help patients in a crowded, bustling urban hospital.

Charles Darwin may have made the strange creatures of the Galapagos Islands famous, but Washington’s famous naturalist, David Douglas, studied these animals a whole decade before Darwin. The Collector, recent PNBA Book Award winner, tells the engaging history of Washington’s natural past through Douglas’s escapades and adventures. Without having to survive on a diet of bald eagle, you can learn what it felt like to explore the Pacific Northwest when it was still wild, uncharted territory.

And now in paperback, both of these substantial, weighty reads will feel much lighter this winter… leaving one hand free for that steaming cup of coffee.