Today’s TTT is “books set in snowy places”. Well, that rules out anything in Alabama! But first, a couple of Tuesday Teases from The Battle Cry of Freedom, by James McPherson.
“Soon after dawn on February 16, Buckner sent a proposal to Grant for discussion of surrender terms. Back came a blunt reply: ‘No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.’ Buckner was nettled by these ‘ungenerous and unchivalrous’ words. After all, he had lent the down-and-out Grant money to help him get home after his resignation from the army in 1854.”
“The boost that the battle [of Chancellorsville] gave to Southern morale proved in the end harmful, for it bred an overconfidence in their own prowess and a contempt for the enemy that led to disaster. Believing his troops to be invincible, Lee was about to ask them to do the impossible.”
But mostly [Martin van Buren] eludes us because no one is looking for him anymore. He’s a lost president, floating in purgatory between Jackson and the Civil War, unremembered by most, and doomed to occupy the least heroic categories designed by historians (he has a lock on “average”). Once it was not so. Approximately six generations ago, it was impossible not to have an opinion about Martin Van Buren. And these opinions were not for the faint of heart.” MARTIN VAN BUREN, Ted Widmer
Ten Books for Playing in the Snow…
(1) The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis. Bit of a gimme: the whole premise is that when the Pensevies arrive in Narnia it’s always winter and never Christmas.
(2) The View from the Summit, Sir Edmund Hillary. The first man to mount Mount Everest recalls some of his adventures.
(3) Sunlight at Midnight, a history of St. Petersburg. I first visited St. Petersburg in a bookish way via American Phoenix, in which John Quincy Adams complained of the city being constantly frozen in.
(4) The Saxon Stories series by Bernard Cornwell, which is set in England and Scandinavia in the middle ages and presumably has snow in the winter books.
(5) Winterkill, CJ Box. The natural landscape and weather are usually huge factors in Box’s game warden series, and this starts early with #2, Winterkill.
(6) Winter World, Bernd Heinrich. A look at how animals have adapted themselves to extreme cold.
(7) Winter, Gary Paulsen. The story of a teenager marooned in the Canadian forests in winter.
(8)If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now, Chris Ingrahm. A memoir of moving to the midwest and and having to learn on how to respond to snowmageddon that’s so normal no one realizes they’re coping through a disaster every single year.
(9) A Tudor Christmas, Alison Weir. A social history of Christmastide in medieval England, where there was probably snow. Also, ghost stories, since that used to be a big thing in English at Christmas.
(10) Lost on Purpose, Patrick Taylor. A man’s memoir of trying to follow Lewis and Clark’s explorations in the mountains…..as snowstorms move in.
Reading Freely 
Good to see Narnia here!
It would’ve been even if I hadn’t been doing a Narnia audiobook re-listen!
Maybe I should send If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home now to my family in Chicago. I don’t think they realize they live in a snowmageddon every year, but they do!
It’s full of rude surprises for the guy — like him realizing that the leaves he leaves to rot WON’T rot because they don’t have time to before the freezes set in!
Winter sure sounds like a good read.
It was!
Winter, Gary Paulsen sounds super good – looks like I’ll have to read the entire Brian’s Saga series.
Great list!
I enjoyed it a great deal, even though I read it as an adult!
These all sound like good reads. I haven’t read any of them.
As someone who lives where we get snow 4-5 months out of the year, I think after a while we become desensitized to how bad it truly can be. I know we’re lucky where I live, because we rarely get feet of snow at a time. But all it would take is the wind to shift and we would get a serious dumping.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/favorite-canadian-fiction-reads-of-2025/
Ahhh it’s great to see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on this list!! I wish we got more snow where I live 😦
Here’s my TTT post – https://justreadjessie.blog/2025/12/09/top-ten-tuesday-books-set-in-snowy-places/
It came to mind instantly!
I loved Narnia as a kid, i didn’t think to add it. Good choices!
Top Ten Books Set in Snowy Places
I’ve read Call of the Wild and White Fang but forgot both until your list!
Ooo A Tudor Christmas sounds interesting!
And the Joe Pickett books – we started watching that tv show over the summer. I will have to check the books out instead. And Lost on Purpose is one I will have to find. I am just about to start the whole Lewis and Clark expedition etc with my son in our homeschool.
The tv series was OK, but they were trying to cram years of events into like, two seasons. The pacing just didn’t work for me, though I liked a lot of the casting!
Gary Paulsen was a favourite of my first son. He loved all his books. Thanks for reminding me of them.
And thanks for visiting my post.
Nice!
I have only read #1 and a good bunch in the Cornwell series. If I remember, yes there are some impressive snow scenes.
https://wordsandpeace.com/2025/12/09/top-ten-books-for-a-2025-christmas-song-tag/