Winter reading should be long and unhurried, the kind of book you can put down for a week and pick up again without losing anything. These five are all old enough to be in the public domain, which means they are free to read online, and each of them rewards the slow approach.
Montaigne, Essays
The book that invented the essay, written by a man who retired to a tower full of books and spent twenty years trying to describe himself honestly. Open it anywhere. Read one chapter. Put it down.
Thoreau, Walden
Two years in a cabin by a pond, told with more humour than its reputation suggests. The chapter on reading is the best argument for slow books I know.
Sterne, Tristram Shandy
A novel in which the narrator is not born until the third volume. Digressive, ridiculous, and much more modern than anything written since.
Emerson, Essays: First Series
Dense, aphoristic and best taken a paragraph at a time. Underline freely.
Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Because everyone deserves to reread it once a decade, and winter is when.