It’s pouring cats and dogs outside, the manager has been informed that you’re not logging into work today and you don’t want to drown out the natural ASMR under OTT chatter, so you are looking for a book, be it an old favorite classic or finally that one classic you have shelved and never really found time to read.

There having about four months still left in 2022, I’ll list four books for you to catch up on this year.

If you are still looking for that long read to accompany you on the windy and stormy day, your solution is here. Curl up with a 500+ page book and that steaming mug to get you through the monsoon blues.

LITTLE WOMEN

Page count: 449

Fifty under the five hundred mark, Little Women is a story we are all familiar with now. With Saoirse Ronan’s Jo to now Kim Go Eun ‘s Jo in the k-drama modern adaptation on Netflix, this story is eternal and here is your opportunity to submerge yourself in the authentic world of sisterly rivalry, love and survival.

I don’t like to doze by the fire. I like adventures, and I’m going to find some.

Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

There is a rawness of emotion and the characters are bound to resound with you, partly because there are a vast number of characters and definitely because they all are so vastly different from each other. There is an originality of characterization that is bound to stand out in this novel.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS (trilogy)

Page count: 1216

I possibly cannot have anything new to say about LOTR that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll give you incentive to read this mammoth of a trilogy only. if you haven’t already. Aside from the fact that J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the fantastic masterpiece of fantasy fiction in 1955 and every other fantasy we have ever read is still trying to emulate this classic, this story is one of eternity and will stay with you long after you have turned the last page.

You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier word.

J. R. R. Tolkien, LOTR

With its friendship, bravery and magic, if you haven’t read this trilogy already, a rainy day while you’re stuck home is the perfect time to embark on this adventure. With the new Prime show airing this month, this is high time to get acquainted and join the tribe of “the book was better”.

VANITY FAIR

Page count: 867

At eight hundred plus pages, Vanity fair is one of the bigger reads on this list, but in no way it is dull or uneventful. Giving you a close look into the class divisions of the time, the plot revolves around Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley’s contrasting existence.

Vanitas Vanitatium! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? Or having it, is satisfied?

William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

As far as engaging your critical mind goes, nobody really does it better than Thackeray. The parallel commentary of the author on the characters is an interesting addition to the plot itself that paints a more realistic picture of Victorian England. You will find love, war, betrayal portrayed in the backdrop of this all-encompassing novel. Challenge yourself to finish 200 pages before dinner?

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Page count: 433

Just under 500 pages, this one is my entry of choice for tragic Hardy. Set in the fictional country of Wessex with its vivid description of rural landscape and impending doom, nothing better reflects the mood on a rainy day like a Hardy novel.

She was of the stuff of which great men’s mothers are made. She was indispensable to high generation, hated at tea parties, feared in shops, and loved at crises.

Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

First published in 1874, the story revolves around Bathsheba Everdene and her really poor decision making, but in really good language. This poignant story, with a strong and active female character, about human relationships and the frustratingly impossible way fate weaves lives together is a rather fast read.

So, let’s hope for many rainy weekends afforded to us during the short time that we have left in the rest of 2022 and tick off these unputdownable classics from our lists one by one.