Cozy Winter Reads, Tackling Taxes, and More by Margaret SiggillinoJanuary 2, 2019

Photo of a book and candle from Creative Commons Winter is here, and all is drab and cold. Good thing most of us are lucky enough to live in homes with modern, everyday miracles such as heat and hot water. These marvels enable us to live in a cleaner, warmer, and more comfortable manner.

Now's a great time to fire up your lamps, candles, computers, and heating stoves, and tuck in with a good book or e-book. We at the New York Public Library have plenty to keep you entertained and informed during the winter season.

Cozy Mysteries

Snuggle up with these cozy mysteries, which are typically light on profanity and overt violence, and heavy on gentle humor. Plots center around "cozy" themes such as hobbies and other personal interests. The Cozy Mystery List website—created by Erin Martin (also known as Danna), an avid cozy mystery fan and freelance author—contains a comprehensive list of cozy mysteries by theme. Such themes include baking, knitting, pets, and much more. One selected example:

Raspberry Danish Murder by Joanne Fluke

We have many blog posts about mysteries including one on cheese-centered mysteries and another looking for "peak coziness" in their reading choices.

E-books, e-audiobooks, e-magazines and e-newspapers

A list of apps for library e-books and e-audiobooks including SimplyE, Overdrive, Libby, Cloud Library, AudioBookCloud, and Flipster If you find it too snowy, slushy, and cold to venture outside—or at least beyond your necessary work commute—you can cozy up with one of our free e-books or e-audiobooks. All you need is your library card number and pin number.

To read e-books or to listen to audiobooks on your phone or e-reader, you just have to download one of the following apps, and use your library card number and pin number to activate them.

For e-books and e-audiobooks:

SimplyE
Overdrive
Libby

For e-books only:

Cloud Library (CL)

For e-audiobooks only:

AudioBookCloud

For e-magazines:

Flipster Digital Magazines

To learn more about our e-books, check out NYPL E-book Central. We also offer a blog post on how to enjoy our e-audiobooks on your phone.

For popular e-versions of the magazines you know and love, you can use Flipster to read titles like Cooking Light, Bon Appetit, People, Consumer Reports Buying Guide, Time, Newsweek and many more.

To read full-text newspapers and magazines from here and around the world, you can use PressReader, available from your home computer, or you download the app to your smartphone or e-reader.

Fans of National Geographic will love the National Geographic Virtual Library. You can get this and our other free databases from the comfort of your home by going through the NYPL website.

Coziness Defined, Danish Style

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking

Written by Meik Wiking, the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen about the Danish concept of hygge (pronounced hoo-ga). This is the philosophy of comfort, togetherness, well-being, feeling at home, and feeling safe.

Hygge is about embracing the simple pleasures of daily life. It is the cozy sensation you get when you’re cuddled up on a sofa under a warm blanket, cuddling up with a pet, enjoying the warm sight of candles in your home, or a cup of coffee or tea, and eating with friends. You can create your own version of hygge in your home and in your life.

For The Little Book of Hygge, we have the large print version, the e-book version and the e-audiobook version of this book.

Staying Healthy

Green Smoothies for Life by JJ Smith

If you would like to boost your immunity against colds, and feel refreshed and energized, then save yourself some greenbacks by making yourself a green smoothie such as those in Green Smoothies for Life by Jennifer J. Smith.

You can also find our vast number of other cookbooks of all types from casseroles to cookies and beyond, available in print and e-book versions.

Tackling Your Taxes

Your Income Tax 2018 by J.K. Lasser

Tax time will be here before you know it and J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2018 can provide some guidance. J.K. Lasser, short for Jacob Kay Lasser, wrote his first tax help guide 75 years agos. Since then, the J.K Lasser Institute has been publishing various types of tax help guides. We have many J.K. Lasser publications in both regular print and e-book versions.

In addition, we have other tax help books availble including those published by Nolo, a company that has been publishing do-it-yourself legal guides since 1971. We carry many of their tax help books and many of their other legal guides.

Finally, if you would like free hands-on assistance with your taxes, you can find help at Library branches throughout Staten Island, as well as in Manhattan and the Bronx, from January to April. For more information on free tax help in New York City, you can check out the tax prep page provided by the Department of Consumer Affairs website.

Planning Your Escape

If you are finding all of this talk about taxes and e-resources way too taxing, consider spending your time fantasizing about being on a warm, tropical beach such as those in Fodor’s 535 Best Beaches.

Or you can start planning a family vacation to Disney World with the help of The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2019 by Bob Sehlinger. Work Your Way Around the World book cover

If you are toying with the idea of escaping your environs for a longer duration, check out Work Your Way Around The World:The Globetrotter's Bible by Susan Griffith.

You can also see our other travel planning books here. If you'd rather travel in your imagination right now, check out the recommendations on our Ticketless Traveler series of blog posts, one of our many blog channels.

Hope you all have a great beginning to your new year, fiiled with cozy times and happy browsing!

View all posts by Margaret Siggillino