Cozy Cold Weather Reads - AudioBook Selections | Mechanics' Institute

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Cozy Cold Weather Reads - AudioBook Selections

This December, whether you’re hiding out at home from the crowds and the cold, driving to see family, wrapping presents, or baking cookies, it’s likely your hands will be too busy to leaf through books. This month’s audiobook selections of cozy mysteries and Christmas tales will keep you company as you go about your tasks.

The Christmas Train  by David Baldacci

Journalist Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, is forced to take the train to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend for Christmas after he is banned from flying. In this funny and uplifting story, through encounters with a ridiculous cast of characters, romance, and an avalanche, Tom will learn what truly makes the holidays special.

Skipping Christmas  by John Grisham

In this book that inspired the Tim Allen movie Christmas with the Kranks, Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas this year in lieu of a Christmas cruise. Grisham’s hilarious and insightful depiction of holiday chaos and modern A Christmas Carol will delight listeners looking for a light story.

A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens

In this classic Christmas story published in 1843, Charles Dickens writes of a miser who learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors open his eyes to his past and foretells a grim future, thereby giving him a chance at redemption.  While you may be familiar with A Christmas Carol, listen to the story in its entirety in this unabridged version performed by veteran narrator Frank Muller who brings each character to life with distinct voices and nuanced delivery.

Eleven Pipers Piping  by C. C. Benison

Father Tom Christmas, a recently widowed vicar, would do almost anything to avoid attending an annual supper at a local hotel. But as chaplain to a traditional Scottish pipe band he must deliver the grace. The revelry carries on in the hotel until its owner-and piper, Will Moir, goes missing-only to be found dead in the hotel's tower apparently from a heart attack. Who would benefit the most from the piper's death? Father Tom investigates

Blood from a Stone  by Donna Leon

On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses to the event are the tourists who had been browsing the man's wares before his death. The dead man is one of the many African immigrants purveying goods outside normal shop hours and trading without a work permit. Like everybody involved, Commissario Brunetti wonders why anyone would kill an illegal immigrant.

How the Light Gets In: a Chief Inspector Gamache novel  by Louise Penny

Christmas is approaching, and in Quebec it's a time of dazzling snowfalls, bright lights, and gatherings with friends in front of blazing hearths. But shadows are falling on the usually festive season for Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Most of his best agents have left the Homicide Department, his old friend and lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir hasn't spoken to him in months, and hostile forces are lining up against him. 

Posted on Dec. 1, 2016 by Sou Phetsomphou