Globe Corner Blogs

If you’re anything like us this time of year, you’re grumpy, tired, and sore from falling down so many times. To help you get through the last few months of winter we’ve prepared a list of authors that will get you out of the doldrums and into spring. What follows is an alphabetical list of some of our favorite make-you-laugh-out-loud authors.

1. Peter Allison

Allison’s books Whatever You Do, Don’t Run and Don’t Look Behind You take you into the surprisingly not-so-glamorous life of a safari guide. Every job has its challenges, but not many involve packs of hyenas and irritable hippos. Not to mention tourists in the wild.

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2. Bill Bryson

Bryson is perhaps best known for being a middle-aged white guy doing absurd activities for the sake of absurdity, and simultaneously finding the absurdity in the world around him. From A Walk in the Woods where he tackles the Appalachian Trail to In a Sunburned Country where he tries all things Australian, Bryson shows us the humor of living on this planet.

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3. Tim Cahill

Need a little adventure in your life? Try some books from the founder of Outside Magazine. His titles tell you all you need to know. Among others: Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, A Wolverine is Eating My Leg, and Pecked to Death by Ducks. It’s probably all the excitement you can take for one sleepy, snowy day curled up on your bed reading.

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The Ends of the Earth -by Elizabeth Kolbert

The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts currently has an exhibit entitled To The Ends Of the Earth, Painting and the Polar Landscape. It features over 50 paintings and photographs by artists who journeyed to the Arctic and Antarctica during the 19th and 20th centuries. I have always wanted to see the Aurora-Borealis, and even have traveled to Iceland five times in an attempt to see the phenomena. Unfortunately, I have never seen it due to adverse weather situations. After viewing the slide show on the Museum’s website, I figure that this will be a sure-fire way to finally see the Aurora-Borealis…or at least of painting of it! The exhibit is running through the first of March, so make sure to trek through the ice and snow to catch it before the warm spring months come and take it away.

100 Best Ski Resorts of the World -by Gerry Wingenbach

I awoke this morning to temperatures outside of five-degrees with a windchill of six-below. This did not bode well for my walk to the bus stop sporting still-damp hair and the cute skirt I was determined to wear. Oh well: crunchy, frozen hair and chilly knees I could handle. Five is really not so bad.

Negative eleven is another story. This is what I’m hearing from reports out of Ohio. Minnesota’s negative twenty-two, on the other hand, is downright prohibitive. I’m not sure how one survives in weather where the windchill is fifty-below. I’d have to invest in a hair dryer.

In weather like this, my mind doesn’t necessarily drift to the Caribbean though, but to places where people are able to stay outside and play in the snow.

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Raven Map of West Virginia

Why do we, warm-blooded mammals, particularly dislike the winter season? The answers are apparent: it’s dark, it’s cold, and your bus is always twenty minutes late for the sole reason of torturing you and making you turn into an icicle on that desolate street corner.

But on the other hand, why don’t we take a more optimistic look at the upcoming winter? That will come to you easily, especially after a mug of hot chocolate, don’t worry. Yes, winter can be escaped only if you are taking a vacation in the Caribbean. So if it is inescapable, why not to try to have some snowy fun? After all, global warming is coming, you know, and snow is becoming more and more precious.

To catch some of it (or sometimes quite a lot), I would personally recommend West Virginia. Don’t be surprised! They have all the trails open right now with 8 to 16 inches of that white stuff, which we probably won’t get for another month here in Boston! And for those who just started shivering, the experts say – it is never cold when it snows unless it is a serious blizzard. However, there is always a cure for that disaster, like a ski resort cabin with a cozy fireplace, for example. That is certainly something you would appreciate and enjoy when it’s 15 degrees outside.

So, grab your skiing or snowboarding gear, your kids, dogs, friends, and put them all into the car and go. There is more fun to winter than the fear of cold, I assure you.