Lifehacker Staff’s Winter Reading Picks

Lifehacker Staff’s Winter Reading Picks

Winter: A time to curl up by the fire or in bed with your favourite warm drink in hand, and to get some reading done. And between true crime thrillers, sci-fi adventures and some timeless classics, there’s a lot to get through.

Here’s what we’re reading this winter – what about you?

Inès Montfajon, Seasonal Intern

The last book I read was The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. A close friend recommended this book to me and I really enjoyed reading it.

It discusses the difficulties of a challenging job, deadlines, dealing with the struggle of maintaining a happy love life, and being successful at work. A great lecture on how conversations, research, and truly understanding your goal and its constraints will guide you in the right direction to finally accomplish it.

Nick Douglas, Staff Writer

This winter I’m reading through the Chronicles of Narnia series, using the same copies that my dad read aloud when I was a kid. I’m also reading it aloud, as my wife and I like to read to each other while we get ready for bed. It’s a great read-aloud series, with quick plots and lots of dwarves, talking animals and English schoolchildren to do voices for.

It’s also fun to re-read it right after binging three seasons of The Magicians, which is basically Narnia for adults.

Patrick Allan, Staff Writer

I’ve recently read and recommend When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, and Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo.

This winter, I plan on reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, Escape the Wolf: A Security Handbook for Travelling Professionals by Clinton Emerson, Solanin by Inio Asano, and Crooked Kingdom (the sequel to Six of Crows) by Leigh Bardugo.

Alicia Adamczyk, Staff Writer

This winter, I’m expanding my nonfiction horizons and reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach.

I just finished up John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood which details the rise and fall of Theranos and its charismatic, flawed founder Elizabeth Holmes, which I can’t recommend enough.

I have two Tana French mystery novels on my nightstand, a book about the Manson family, and People Who Eat Darkness, a true crime story by Richard Lloyd Parry that I’ve been waiting to dive into, because I love not being able to fall asleep.

And I can’t wait to get my hands on Kudos, the third book in Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy. If it’s anything like the first two, I know I’ll be coming back to it again and again.

Claire Lower, Food and Beverage Editor

I have been terrible about reading, so my plan is to finally finish Love in the Time of Cholera, which I have been reading for approximately 100 years, and Warren Zevon’s biography, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, which I was tearing through but had to stop for a moment because it was becoming a real bummer.

Adam Powers, Video Producer

I’m currently finishing up the third book in the Red Rising trilogy. It’s basically Hunger Games in space, but way, way better than that. Highly recommend the whole series for a smart, action-packed page-turner.

Also reading up on all things music, so How Music Works by David Byrne is great, and The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross is a must-read.

Also also finally getting around to reading The Sixth Extinction which everyone knows is great.

And finally, if you enjoy graphic novels, there’s no reason to not be reading Saga because it’s astounding: Honest, original, vulgar and gorgeously realised.

Joel Kahn, Senior Video Producer

What I’ve read recently: Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker. Bosker attempts a crash-course in wine and takes us along for the journey. She explains wine concepts while taking us through this narrative of a year in the sommelier world. It serves as a great intro to wine reading.

What I’m currently reading: Weapons of Maths Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. Essentially, O’Neil tells us why algorithms and big data are harming everyone. All the time. With a lot of vivid examples. Not exactly a light read, but enlightening.

What I plan on reading next: Meet Me in the Bathroom by Lizzie Goodman. Four hundred pages of recent indie rock history, from the formation of The Strokes through LCD Soundsystem’s “final” show? Sign me up. This seems like a good companion to my phase of only reading memoirs by female punk rockers two years ago.

Virginia K. Smith, Managing Editor

I’ve been re-reading Tina Brown’s magnum opus, The Diana Chronicles. I read and became obsessed with it when it first came out in 2008, but the combination of the royal wedding and reading her most recent book, The Vanity Fair Diaries, compelled me to re-visit. It’s dishy, expertly reported, and generally perfect. I cannot get enough.


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