Cold weather brings with it the perfect chilly afternoons to curl up with a book. Whether for holiday gifting, or whiling away the day yourself, here are a few of our favourites for the season.
At Home With Lynn Crawford: 200 of My Favourite Easy Recipes
by Lynn Crawford
Outside of her life as a busy restaurateur and Food Network host, Lynn Crawford loves nothing more than to cook up a delicious meal for friends and family. In her latest cookbook, Crawford shares her sure-fire recipes from everything from Sunday brunch to grilling, one-pot dishes, cocktails and desserts. Beautiful photography of finished recipes like Smoked Salmon and Potato Chowder or Banana Fritters with Coconut and Coffee Caramel Sauce will help inspire you to keep it simple while enjoying your time in the kitchen.
$32; penguin.ca
Rose Murray's Canadian Christmas Cooking: The Guide to Holiday Feasts
by Rose Murray
First published in 1979, Rose Murray's Canadian Christmas Cooking is back in print for the first time in ten years. The A to Z guide to affordable holiday meals is revised and updated featuring the same simplicity as the original with tweaks for the modern kitchen including a few new favourite recipes to explore.
$19.95; whitecap.ca
Whimsy's Heavy Things
By Julie Kraulis
Toronto-based artist and illustrator Julie Kraulis has used her beautifully original drawings and delightfully simple text to explain one of life's problems to children aged four to six. When things in life begin to weigh us down, we need to figure out a way to lift ourselves back up ““ and that's just what Whimsy does. Simple and inspiring, Whimsy's Heavy Things focuses on how to deal with our problems without getting bogged down.
$19.99; tundrabooks.com
Canadian Living: The Complete Chocolate Book
by The Canadian Living Test Kitchen
A chocolate cookbook. Need we say more? The Canadian Living Test Kitchen makes it easy to get your chocolate fix with their latest release, The Complete Chocolate Book. Alongside the pages of Tested-Till-Perfect recipes are more than 100 tips and how-to photos to help guide you through the cooking process. The eight chapters are divided by texture of chocolate and include Gooey, Creamy, Crunchy, Chewy, Melty, Crumbly, Chilly and Cakey.
$34.95; tctranscontinental.com
The Luminaries
by Eleanor Catton
An enormous fortune of pure gold is found in the home of a luckless drunk; a prostitute, found unconscious on a dirt road; the town's wealthiest man has vanished. These are the three unsolved crimes that link the fates and fortunes of 12 men in a remote gold-mining frontier town in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Part mystery, part fantastical love story, Eleanor Catton's 2013 Man Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries reveals the intricate ways our interconnected lives can shape our destinies.
$35; mcclelland.com
Dear Life
by Alice Munro
Released last year, Alice Munro's Dear Life has jumped to the top of everyone's reading list after winning the Nobel Prize for Literature ““ the first Canadian author and publication to do so. Also the winner of the Trillium Book Award, Dear Life employs a series of short stories to focus on the often seemingly miniscule moments in life that thrust people from the path they are accustomed to into a new way of being. Set in the classic Munro-world of the countryside and towns surrounding Lake Huron, the series of stories about departures and beginnings, accidents, dangers and homecomings, both virtual and real explore the ideal of how extraordinary an “˜ordinary life' can be.
$32.99; mcclelland.com