Arctic Circle Dreaming on Such a Summer's Day

When the temperature climbs toward 90 degrees in Brooklyn, I definitely begin to daydream of cooler climes…like Alaska. Or maybe Greenland? Anywhere with a glacier will do! And if you're like me, you may enjoy the cool reads I've assembled for escaping the city summer (if only in your mind). I've divided the books into three lists--one if you're curious about living up north, another if you just want to visit and a third for true tales of the arctic north. All stories are set near the Arctic Circle, so bundle up: you might catch a chill breeze while you read.

Life In the Northern Latitudes

The Wolf in the Whale (book, ebook, eaudio) by Jordanna Max Brodsky. Set in the Canadian Arctic  about 1,000 years ago. Omat, a young Inuit girl raised as a boy and trained as a shaman, takes a dangerous journey to save her starving family, but must face down a violent band of Viking explorers.

Burial Rites (book, ebook) by Hannah Kent. Set in rural Iceland, in the 1820s. Charged with the murder of her former master, the servant Agnes is sent to a remote farm to await execution. The author based her story on a real-life court case and calls this her "dark love letter" to Iceland's stark landscape. 

Last Night in Nuuk (book) by Niviaq Korneliussen. Set in urban Greenland, five queer twentysomethings ponder love, despair, and hope in a city (population 18,000) with a distinctly small-town feel.

Forty Days Without Shadow: An Arctic Thriller (book, ebook, eaudio) by Olivier Truc. Set in Lapland, Norway, two police officers who cover reindeer-related crime among the Sami people find themselves investigating a herder's grisly murder. Reviewers praised this noir mystery for its glimpse into the lives of a traditional people living under pressure from the modern world.

Moon of the Crusted Snow (book) by Waubgeshig Rice. Set in the far north of Ontario, in the near future. This post-apocalyptic survival story follows a remote indigenous community as they pull together to survive the harsh winter following a societal collapse in the south. Complications ensue when outsiders arrive, seeking to seize the dwindling food supply.

For Explorers and (Thrill) Seekers

The River (book, ebook) by Peter Heller. Set in northern Canada, at summer's end. Two college pals on camping trip find their friendship tested in this thriller. They must outrace a wildfire, dodge white-water rapids and escape the encroaching winter, all while caring for a deeply traumatized stranger. 

The Sunlit Night (book, ebook) by Rebecca Dinerstein. Set in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle. This quirky romance begins with its main characters isolated and unhappy in (respectively) Manhattan and Brighton Beach. They don't meet up until each has traveled separately to a remote northern island in search of solace and renewal.

How to Survive in the North (book) by Luke Healy. Set in the Arctic, then and now. An ambitious graphic novel that braids three survival stories -- two rooted in historical fact, one entirely fictional -- as it traces a disastrous 1914 polar expedition, a castaway's two-year residence on a Siberian island, and a professor's midlife crisis.

To the Bright Edge of the World (book, ebook, eaudio) by Eowyn Ivey. Set in Alaska, in 1885, this well-received epistolary novel follows a war veteran's winter exploration of the Wolverine River. It's told through the letters he writes to his wife, and her own journal entries as she explores the new science of photography while waiting for his return.

To Build A Fire (book) by Chabouté. Set in the Canadian Rockies, in gold-rush days, a French cartoonist adapts a short story by Jack London in this brief but compelling graphic novel reminiscent of a classic EC Comics suspense story. A would-be prospector has foolishly wandered from his winter camp; to survive the below-freezing temperatures he needs to successfully strike a match.

The Terror (book, ebook) by Dan Simmons. Set in the Arctic Sea, circa 1845. A disastrous sailing expedition to find the rumored Northwest Passage is fictionalized and transformed into a nearly supernatural horror story in this lengthy but gripping (and gory) book, which recently was adapted for television. The ship's crew has been marooned for two years in the ice, in thrall to a tyrannical captain. Meanwhile, a monstrous creature waits in the fog, picking them off one by one.

Arctic Nonfiction

In the Kingdom of Ice : The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette (book, ebook, eaudio) by Hampton Sides. A highly praised retelling of an 1879 expedition to the North Pole. It begins with a perilous trip by sea through the Bering Strait and ends two years later with a diminished crew wandering across remote Siberia.

Shark Drunk : The Art of Catching a Large Shark From a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean (book, ebook, eaudio) by Morten Andreas Strøksnes. The true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, and their attempts to snag a Greenland shark from the North Atlantic while visiting Norway’s Lofoten archipelago. Strøksnes smoothly combines witty observations on natural science and history into an entertaining tale.