Books for the Cozy Season
As I sit here writing this post in the English Department suite of my college, the sky outside is gray, it’s drizzling just slightly, and I’m bundled up in a flannel while listening to “evermore,” having just finished a pumpkin muffin and a cup of chai. IT’S FALL, BABY!!! I’ve been waiting to get my sweaters out of storage for weeks now, and despite having zero time for it, I’m determined to cozy up with some good books this fall. I think my general taste in books is very fall-ish to begin with, but now I get to read my cozy books in a big chair with a cup of tea instead of on a beach, where reading Dickens doesn’t hit quite the same. If you’re looking for cozy and/or spooky books to meet your autumnal needs, then look no further! As a lover of the cozy novel, I’ve got you covered. (:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything in this world.”
-Oscar Wilde
Goodreads: Oscar Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty.
In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.
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I usually gravitate towards “classic” books, but for anyone who is intimidated by the classics, Dorian Gray is the absolute perfect book. It’s witty, fast-paced, and on the shorter side. The characters are pretty much all terrible people, but they’re hilarious. It has all the dark academia vibes (a lot of the books on this list will fall into that category), the mystery, and the morally gray characters that make the perfect autumn book. As a sidebar, the history behind the book is fascinating, too; when it was published, Oscar Wilde was arrested for homosexuality with Dorian Gray as evidence. But I just know the people who arrested him were secretly eating this book up because it’s just that good.
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
“Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet unassuming people. Delightful fellows.”
-Agatha Christie
Goodreads: First, there were ten—a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a little private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unknown to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal—and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. A famous nursery rhyme is framed and hung in every room of the mansion… When they realize that murders are occurring as described in the rhyme, terror mounts. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. Who has choreographed this dastardly scheme? And who will be left to tell the tale? Only the dead are above suspicion.
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I had to put a mystery novel on this list, and Agatha Christie is the queen of the mystery novel. In all honesty, this is the only one of her books that I’ve read, but I’ve heard that it’s one of her best. It’s a quick read that keeps you on your toes the whole time, but I will say that if you’re someone who reads a lot of contemporary mystery novels, you may not enjoy this one as much. Because Christie practically invented the genre, so much has been written since her time that her stories may not seem like anything new. That being said, if like me you don’t read a lot of mystery, Christie is a great place to start. Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile are supposedly her other bests.
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
“I don’t know, it’s like I look at you and suddenly the sonnets make sense. The good ones, anyway.”
-M. L. Rio
Goodreads: Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.
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You thought I was going to recommend The Secret History, didn’t you? Well instead, I’ll recommend The Secret History’s incredible sister (but you should definitely go read The Secret History). I LOVE THIS BOOK. Unlike The Secret History, the murderer and the victim aren’t revealed on the first page, so mystery is a huge part of the story. And reading this book is like listening to your best friend tell you to most unhinged tea about a group of friends… it’s a car crash that you just can’t look away from. I was carrying this book around and shoving my nose into it any spare moment that I got because I was so hooked. Seriously, this will be your new fall obsession, ESPECIALLY if you’re a current or recovering theater kid. You’ll be rethinking what you thought was drama after a casting list came out.
Rebecca by Daphne du Murier
“This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again.”
-Daphne du Murier
Goodreads: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..."
Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county's showpiece. Rebecca made it so - even a year after her death, Rebecca's influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter's shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow?
A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely...
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Technically, Jane Eyre is the gothic novel of all gothic novels, but to be honest, I really preferred Rebecca. Beautiful and creepy seaside mansion, evil housemaid, toxic marriage, and one of the best plot twists I’ve ever read. You might have to drag yourself through the first part of the book, which spends most of its time exploring the relationship between the protagonist and Mr. de Winter (I really enjoy books that take time exploring messy relationships, but if you need a fast-paced plot, then the beginning of this book will feel slow). But TRUST ME, it’s worth it. I was scraping my jaw off the floor.
Fun fact: Taylor Swift’s “tolerate it” is about Rebecca. So if you’re a fan of one of the saddest songs she’s ever written, that’s one more reason to read this book.
Funner fact: The 2020 movie starring Lily James is pretty good! It’s not as suspenseful as the book, but Lily James kills it in her performance. Would recommend!
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel must be intolerably stupid.”
-Jane Austen
Goodreads: A wonderfully entertaining coming-of-age story, Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.
The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.
Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.
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If after reading Rebecca, you want a gothic novel that makes fun of other gothic novels and takes itself so unseriously, then look no further. This book begins like any other Austen novel with a cute, blooming romance (and more than any of her other novels, she writes the most unhinged lines about characters [usually men] that made me laugh out loud), and then suddenly our main characters is in a big, spooky house and Austen is making fun of other main characters in big, spooky houses. For me, this didn’t measure up to Emma or Pride and Prejudice, but it was Austen’s humor at its best.
The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
“I think I want to be in love with you but I don’t know how.”
-Angela Carter
Goodreads: One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure garden. And brooding Uncle Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshops. The classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative works.
"Beneath its contemporary surface, this novel shimmers with blurred echoes—from Lewis Carroll, from 'Giselle' and 'Coppelia,' Harlequin and Punch… It leave behind it a flavor, pungent and unsettling" —The New York Times Book Review
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It’s weird that I’m including this on the list, because I actually really hated this book. But let me explain. Angela Carter is simply not for me. The Magic Toyshop was just darker and weirder than I like my books, but Carter is still an amazing writer. My dislike was me being a whimsical and fragile soul. That being said, if you like dark (but not super dark) and weird (pretty darn weird), this might be up your alley. Warning: there is no magic toyshop. Excuse me for thinking this was going to be a whimsical story about magic puppets and instead getting a book that made me want to puke. Did I mention this book is weird?
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
“It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. Should I try to do the same?”
-Susanna Clarke
Goodreads: Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
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This is another academic-vibes recommendation, and since fall is the season beginning the school year, it seems like the perfect time to read a book about a lovable scholar. You will enjoy every moment of being inside Piranesi’s head, and his story is easy to read but at the same time has layers and layers of depth. The less you know about this book before reading it, the better. Embrace the confusion. And if you enjoy Piranesi, I’d also recommend Susanna Clarke’s other novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It’s a very different book but has the same endearing, magical, and academic vibes.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”
-Mary Shelley
Amazon: Few creatures of horror have seized readers' imaginations and held them for so long as the anguished monster of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The story of Victor Frankenstein's terrible creation and the havoc it caused has enthralled generations of readers and inspired countless writers of horror and suspense. Considering the gothic novel's enduring success, it is remarkable that it began merely as a whim of Lord Byron's.
"We will each write a story," Byron announced to his next-door neighbors, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin and her lover, the romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
The illustrious poets failed to complete their ghost stories, but Mary Shelley rose supremely to the challenge. With Frankenstein, she succeeded admirably in the task she set for herself: to create a story that, in her own words, "would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror — one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart."
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Rounding out this list is the spooky book of all spooky books. Disclaimer: this is on my own TBR, so technically, I haven’t read it yet. But come on, it’s Frankenstein! I’ve never heard a bad thing about this book. I’m saving this baby for Halloween, and I guess if I hate it, I’ll come back to you with an update. Anyone want to join me in reading it in October?
If you made it this far, thank you for sticking around and letting me ramble about some of my favorite books for a little while (or a long while). I hope your fall is filled with sweaters and rainy weather and hot tea and all things pumpkin spice… and of course the perfect book to cozy up with. Happy reading!