2025 Reading Challenge discussion

The theme for December is ice cold. As always, this is completely open to interpretation: as long as you can tell us why you think it should fit the theme, it counts.

Please nominate only one book and ensure you either link the book or give the name of the author as well to avoid confusion. You can second someone else's nomination, but that will count as your own. Nominations cannot have been chosen for a past group read (past buddy reads are fine).

This thread will be closed on October 25th, and we will choose ten books for the poll. If there are more than ten books nominated, we will choose the ten most nominated. If there is still a tie to get into the top ten, we'll go back to the Goodreads average rating to see which is highest.

I would like to nominate Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. In the book, the author recounts his expedition to Mount Everest which, as you can see from the title, doesn't go well. I loved this book and Krakauer is so effective at describing the extreme cold of Everest that I actually found myself shivering while reading!

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

I'd like to nominate Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.

I'll nominate The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey.

I nominate A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron because it is recommended time & time again as the perfect, heart-warming read for those ice cold winter days.

"Heartwarming, insightful, and often laugh-out-loud funny, A Dog's Purpose is not only the emotional and hilarious story of a dog's many lives, but also a dog's-eye commentary on human relationships and the unbreakable bonds between man and man's best friend. This moving and beautifully crafted story teaches us that love never dies, that our true friends are always with us, and that every creature on earth is born with a purpose."

I recommend "Ice Cold" by Tess Gerritsen. It's an awesome mystery in the Rizzoli and Isles series!

I second Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Good recommendations so far! I highly recommend both Between Shades of Gray and Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster.

Since I've already read those, however, I'll go ahead and nominate 2001: A Space Odyssey, which I've always wanted to read and think would make for great discussion. Naturally, space is incredibly cold, so I figure it fits well enough for the theme.

Alicia wrote: "I would like to nominate Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer. In the book, the author recounts his expedition to Mount Everest wh..."

That's a good one!

Amy wrote: "I recommend "Ice Cold" by Tess Gerritsen. It's an awesome mystery in the Rizzoli and Isles series!"

I love that book!

I'll fourth "Between Shades of Grey":)

I loved Between Shades of Gray it was my favourite book that I read last year but as I have read that one I would like to nominate The Falcons of Fire and Ice by Karen Maitland where a girl has to travel to Iceland to save her fathers' life...

The year is 1539 and the Portuguese Inquisition ushers in an era of torture and murder. When the Royal Falconer is imprisoned on false charges to remove him from the inner circle of the boy King, the Inquisitors strike an impossible deal with his daughter, Isabela. Bring back two rare white falcons from Iceland within the year or her father dies.

Meanwhile in Iceland, a menacing stranger appears to have possessed the soul of a woman chained up in a volcanic cave and is threatening to destroy the community. The woman's twin sister, Eydis, is desperate to intervene but vivid dreams suggest the twins' only salvation lies with a young girl from afar, travelling in search of white feathers.

Isabela's quest might hold a more crucial purpose then she could ever imagine and there are those among her travel companions who have an interest in doing her harm. But in order to fulfil her destiny, first she must reach Iceland's shores. Alive.

I haven't read Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Sepetys, but I read Out of the Easy by the same author, and that book was amazing, and I'd love to read Between Shades of Grey! So I'll fifth it.

I nominate The Rabbit Back Literature Society


- because it takes place in Finland in winter, which qualifies as ice cold. Also because I want to read it!

A highly contagious book virus, a literary society and a Snow Queen-like disappearing author

'She came to realise that under one reality there's always another. And another one under that.'

Only very special people are chosen by children's author Laura White to join 'The Society', an elite group of writers in the small town of Rabbit Back.

Now a tenth member has been selected: Ella, literature teacher and possessor of beautifully curving lips.

But soon Ella discovers that the Society is not what it seems. What is its mysterious ritual, 'The Game'? What explains the strange disappearance that occurs at Laura's winter party, in a whirlwind of snow? Why are the words inside books starting to rearrange themselves? Was there once another tenth member, before her?

Slowly, disturbing secrets that had been buried come to light...

In this chilling, darkly funny novel, the uncanny brushes up against the everyday in the most beguiling and unexpected of ways.

I nominate Ice Station by Matthew Reilly


Antarctica is the last unconquered continent, a murderous expanse of howling winds, blinding whiteouts and deadly crevasses. On one edge of Antarctica is Wilkes Station. Beneath Wilkes Station is the gate to hell itself...

A team of U.S. divers, exploring three thousand feet beneath the ice shelf has vanished. Sending out an SOS, Wilkes draws a rapid deployment team of Marines-and someone else...

First comes a horrific firefight. Then comes a plunge into a drowning pool filled with killer whales. Next comes the hard part, as a handful of survivors begin an electrifying, red-hot, non-stop battle of survival across the continent and against wave after wave of elite military assassins-who've all come for one thing: a secret buried deep beneath the ice...

I'll second The Snow Child. I have read between shades of grey and it is an amazing book

Smilla's Sense of Snow. The best book I have ever read which is set in the artic.

Emily wrote: "I nominate Ice Station by Matthew Reilly


Antarctica is the last unconquered continent, a murderous expanse of howling winds, blinding whiteouts and dea..."

I second . I've read and enjoyed one Matthew Reilly and would like to read more.

I nominate At the Mountains of Madness. It is about a disastrous expedition to Antarctica. Brrr!