Snowmen, Best Travel Books, Wintry Novels, Recipes in Verse & More: Endnotes 12 December

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

It’s unseasonably warm here in Prague, but that’s not preventing me from daydreaming about an all-day snowstorm, building snowmen (and ladies) in the park, and sipping hot chocolate. It’s just good thinking to be prepared, so here are expert tips for building a snowman, and, from the BBC, how to build the ultimate snowman, according to science. For inspiration, here are 92 creative snowmen and 15 of the biggest snow creations ever. Maybe you just want to snuggle up and watch the original Frosty the Snowman from 1969, perhaps with some hot cocoa topped with a marshmallow snowman like this or like this.

• The worst Christmas presents in literature. ‘[S]hop around (as we must at this time of year) and you can gather a whole stocking-full of fictional presents: memorable, comical and relatable gifts that go on giving, every time we unwrap them anew.’

• We made these easy snow globe cocktails last year, and they were super cute.

• Related: When seasonal beverages speak the truth.

• From the Booker Prize, the best wintry novels. (I just picked up The Birthday Party, based on this list.)

• This classic book wallet would make an excellent gift for your favorite reader (and/or yourself).

• So specific and lovely: 20 Japanese words for rain. If you like this list, you might enjoy the book The Great Passage by Shion Miura (translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter).

• It’s unlikely this will come up in my life anytime soon, but still! Fun to imagine: Arctic versus Antarctic: Which expedition cruise should you choose?

• Talk about going on the naughty list — Two Armed Thieves Stole Eight Matisse Prints From a São Paulo Library. The stolen works were part of ‘Do Livro ao Museu’ (From the Book to the Museum), an exhibition of rare art books, prints, and drawings.

• Smithsonian Mag recommends the 10 best books about travel from 2025. ‘This year’s picks take us through time and place, from the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the waters that still hold its stories to the iconic Europe-to-South Asia Hippie Trail of the 1970s. We embark on a circumnavigation of the globe at a time without cellphones, accompany a solo female motorcyclist on an epic journey across 25 countries, and set out on a 100-year history of the legendary Route 66.’

• Did you know you can adopt a classic novel at the British Library? The donation supports conservation work on books, and you get to be the caretaker for Jane Eyre, Little Women, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, A Christmas Carol, and many other beloved titles.

• This is such a cute comic about a year of reading.

• Looking ahead, here’s an advent calendar of what’s entering the public domain in 2026 — and the 23 books you should read before they’re turned into movies next year.

• Somewhat related: A crash course in Brontëmania, including more on Emerald Fennell’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

• 25 ‘astounding images’ of Northern Lights from 2025. Breathtaking!

• 11 Fascinating Christmas Traditions Around the World. I’m all-in on Krumpus, and/but La Befana in Italy is (sinister) fun, too!

• If you enjoyed our recent podcast episode Manor House: The Fall of the House of… Almost Everyone, Really, you might want to take a look at this list of the best country house mystery books recommended by author Gareth Rubin.

• What happens when poetry and recipes collide? Recipes in verse. ‘For Abu Bakr, poetry had the decisive advantage of being easier to memorise and transmit—a device humans had taken advantage of for centuries, if not millennia, before its mechanisms were ever explained by psychologists and neurolinguists.’

• 19 Outstanding Chinese Novels in Translation — literary fiction, family stories, sci-fi, fantasy, and more.

‘A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.’ ― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Top image courtesy of Andri Wyss.