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A Book for Every Season: What I’m Reading this Spring
- Kirsten Bierlein-Hollenback
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
They say there is a season for everything, and Michiganders know that well!
I have spent years researching which book genres best correspond with which seasons, and I would like to use the remainder of this article to share my findings with you:
Summer is for very unserious “beach reads” (anything by Mary Kay Andrews, for example.) These novels are best read with your bum in the sand and Jimmy Buffett playing over your waterproof JBL speaker. This is also the only season in which it’s acceptable to read Michael Crichton and Peter Benchley and view their subsequent films (the Jurassic Park and Jaws franchises, respectively.) For those who have exhausted Crichton’s and Benchley’s catalogs, might I suggest Preston & Child and both their Pendergast and Nora Kelly series.
Autumn is for historical fiction, cozy mysteries, thought-provoking novels that alter the course of your existence, and everything ever written by Agatha Christie. My all-time favorites include:
The Library of Lost Dollhouses by Elise Hooper
The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (This must be listened to on audiobook. You’ll see.)
Any book in the Hercule Poirot series by Agatha Christie
November 1st through January 1st is, as we all know and agree, Christmas Music, Novel, and Movie Season. This is the perfect time to reread Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas. Fans of Hallmark Christmas movies should consider picking up a copy of The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Jenny Bayliss, and those looking for something utterly charming should consider The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan or Letters from Father Christmas by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Which brings us, finally, to Spring.
Spring is, unequivocally, intended for non-fiction. It is a time when we shed our old selves and crave learning something new. Spring is for books on gardening. Books on using that garden to cook, create, and become the self-sufficient homesteader you always knew you could be, if you ever needed to start life over in a completely uninhabited corner of the earth. And Spring is for…stay with me here…books on cults.
I am fascinated by cults. And while I can’t read about them in the winter (too depressing) by the time Spring rolls around, I am in the right headspace to learn about something creepy.
This spring, I chose to do a deep dive on the most fundamental sects of Mormonism. If you are as intrigued as I am about how generally benign ideas and religious sentiments can take a wild turn, I suggest the following titles:
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke
The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife Who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders
to Justice by Rebecca Musser
Educated by Tara Westover
