Battling the Winter Blues: How Your Library Can Help Brighten the Season

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Harold Fry is convinced that he must deliver a letter to an old love in order to save her, meeting various characters along the way and reminiscing about the events of his past and people he has known, as he tries to find peace and acceptance.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past. Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
At twenty-five, Takako’s life falls apart when her boyfriend Hideaki admits he has been unfaithful and plans to marry someone else. Lost and heartbroken, she accepts an offer from her uncle Satoru, a gentle and eccentric bookseller in Tokyo, to stay in the small room above his secondhand shop. What begins as a temporary escape becomes a time of quiet healing as she discovers a love for literature, forms new friendships, and learns to find joy in small moments. When her past resurfaces, it is Satoru’s steady kindness and their shared days among the books that help both of them rediscover warmth, purpose, and hope.

Happy Place by Emily Henry
Harriet and Wyn were the perfect couple until they broke up five months ago (and never told their friends). Now they are sharing a room at their group’s beloved Maine cottage for one final week before it is sold. Determined not to ruin the trip, they pretend to still be together, but after years of love, pretending for a week might be harder than they expect.

Biblioboard is an app that provides users with access to a vast digital library of ebooks, academic resources, and curated content for reading, research, and educational purposes.

Hoopla is a free digital media service that offers instant access to over 1.5 million audiobooks, eBooks, comics, music albums, movies, and TV shows, all available through participating public libraries with no waiting or late fees.

Libby is a free, user-friendly app that allows you to borrow ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines from your local library using just your library card, with features like offline reading, Kindle compatibility (U.S. only), and seamless syncing across devices.

King Lear
Jean-Luc Godard’s first English-language feature is a radical anti-adaptation of King Lear, set in a post-Chernobyl world where culture has vanished. As William Shakespeare Jr. V tries to rebuild his ancestor’s play, Godard weaves a dense collage of sound, image, and ideas, creating a playful, profound meditation on art, language, and cinema itself.

The Substance
Former actress and fitness guru Elisabeth Sparkle, fired for looking too old, takes a miracle drug that restores her youth—but with a catch: she must switch bodies each week between her younger self, Sue, and her real self, or face disastrous consequences.

The Surfer
A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. But his desire to hit the waves is thwarted by a group of locals whose mantra is “don’t live here, don’t surf here.” Humiliated and angry, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising in concert with the punishing heat of the summer and pushes him to his breaking point.

Shadow Force
In Shadow Force, Kyrah and Issac were once the leaders of a multinational special forces group called Shadow Force. They broke the rules by falling in love, and in order to protect their son, they go underground. With a large bounty on their heads, and the vengeful Shadow Force hot on their trail, one family’s fight becomes and all-out war.

The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living by Meik Wiking
From picking the right lighting to organizing a Hygge get-together to dressing hygge, Wiking shows you how to experience more joy and contentment the Danish way.

Holy Hygge: Creating a Place for People to Gather and the Gospel to Grow by Jamie Erickson
In Holy Hygge, Jamie Erickson blends the Danish practice of hygge, including hospitality, relationships, well-being, atmosphere, comfort, contentment, and rest, with gospel truths. She shows how a cozy lifestyle can become life-giving when grounded in faith and offers practical ways to welcome others, along with discussion questions, Scripture, and prayer.

The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection by Louisa Thomsen Brits
The centuries-old Danish tradition of Hygge comes from a country voted to be the happiest on earth, and its special custom of emotional warmth, slowness, and appreciation, is becoming increasingly familiar to an international audience. To hygge means to enjoy the good things in life with good people.