Don’t read Annie Proulx in front of the wood stove alone during a power outage while heavy snow blows horizontally outside the window and the wind screams down the chimney. YOU WILL FREAK YOURSELF OUT!

Instead, try Tina Fey’s “Bossypants.” Good for a unexpectedly feminist laugh and a reminder of 21st century luxuries like “30 Rock.” And, oh, t.v. And electricity.

And when you’ve read that straight through, continue on with a healthy dose of Joel Salatin’s “Folks, This Ain’t Normal.” Which will make you feel so wonderfully normal as you get up to fill your wood stove with wood you fed, named, petted, felled, split, stacked and carried in yourself.

P.S. Please do read Annie Proulx at any other time. She is just such a freaking badass in the way she lays down a story, and her writing thrills me in a way few others do.