By Amy Cochran, Grand Rapids Public Library, Seymour Branch

As the weather turns colder, I like to curl up with favorite reads of years past, especially books with settings that make me glad to be inside with a hot cup of tea. This year I turned yet again to The Shipping News and found myself as always completely immersed in the language and setting.

After losing his good-for-nothing wife to a car accident, Quoyle returns to his ancestral home in Newfoundland with his beloved daughters and an aunt finally ready to face her brutal upbringing.

This is the story of three generations of Quoyles working to climb out of past tragedy.  Proulx targets the bad choices people make in life as well as the choices that are forced upon them. Her prose style echoes the cold, tight-knit community that Quoyle settles into as she distills each sentence to its most essential message, as if relating a tale straight from the mouths of the village elders.

I enjoy watching Quoyle grow as a father and a man as he becomes a decent writer for the local paper, learns to love squidburgers and various types of bologna dinners and gradually surpasses his grief in order to look ahead to the future. I especially like the dark humor infused in every page, the horrifying stories melded with the amused resignation and jokes of the residents.

Quirky characters, a setting that sticks in the mind, and stark yet descriptive language make this a book I will continue to reread, probably during the winter, for years to come.