You think this is cold? Curl up with one of these freezing novels, and you'll feel even more grateful that you've got a working furnace:

1. Kim Stanley Robinson, "Fifty Degrees Below" (2005).
In the second installment of Robinson's trilogy of environmental doom, we learn that Al Gore was right, but it's too late! Global warming has stalled the Gulf Stream, first causing massive floods and then plunging the world into a brutal winter that just might finish off mankind. Washington is in a deep freeze, but some diligent scientists think they have a last-ditch solution.

2. Wayne Johnston, "The Colony of Unrequited Dreams" (1999).
This epic novel describes the life of Newfoundland's first premier, Joe Smallwood, from humble beginnings through near-death adventures to the halls of power. Hilarious snippets from the fictional "Condensed History of Newfoundland" add humor to this icebound story. I've been dying to visit ever since I read it.

3. Annie Proulx, "The Shipping News" (1993).
Early in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a misfit loses his sick parents, his dull job and his humiliating wife. Distraught and aimless, he moves to Newfoundland and, against all odds, manages to cobble together the loving family he never had. Still the best book Proulx has written.

4. Per Petterson, "Out Stealing Horses" (2007).
In this quiet, brooding novel, an old widower moves into a remote cabin in snowy Norway. He expects to be spend his time alone in the cold, but he meets a neighbor who reminds him of a traumatic day, many decades ago, when they decided to steal some horses.

5. Claire Davis, "Winter Range" (2000).
When the Montana winter gets so fierce that it starts killing off a poor rancher's cattle, the sheriff
steps in to put the animals out of their misery. But the well-meaning lawman doesn't realize he's stirred up a long-seething resentment that puts his wife in grave danger.

--Ron Charles

I recommended these books two years ago, while mocking Washington's pathetic snowdays. No longer!

6. Snow, by Orhan Pamuk (2004). I could hardly pass up a novel named Snow, could I? Especially one written by a Nobel Prize winner. An exiled Turk returns to his country for his mother's funeral, only to get stranded by endlessly falling snow in an isolated city riven by religious violence.

7. The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (1940). In this, the sixth of the Little House books, Laura and her family are snowbound in a tiny South Dakota town. I haven't read this in ages, but I remember so clearly how shocked I was as a kid that houses could be completely buried by snow.

8. The People's Act of Love, by James Meek (2005). Snow plus the Russian Revolution plus an unnerving celibate cult! Naturally, excitement, murder and ill-advised coupling ensue.

9. The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett (1998). What happens on the ice, stays in the ice. Until it doesn't. A trip to the Arctic to find Sir John Franklin's lost expedition itself founders in freezing waters and overweening ambition.

10. The Terror, by Dan Simmons (2007). Simmons has taken Franklin's hapless and horrifying expedition -- two ships stuck in the ice for over a year-- and added a monster.

--Rachel Shea

And if your furnace isn't working, and you are desperate to say good-bye to winter, try these recommendations from an earlier post extolling summer reading:

1. Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury.
The most quintessentially summer book I know. For 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding in the summer of 1928 in Green Town, Ill. (for which you can substitute Anytown, USA, or at least you could some decades ago when I first read this classic), it's a magical season. To borrow Douglas's own labels, his summer is full of "Rites and Ceremonies" and "Discoveries and Revelations" and includes the luxuries of wild strawberries, front-porch swings, early evening games of kick-the-can and Mason jars of fireflies. Reading this book will slow you down. Bradbury chronicles a whole season of "June dawns, July noons, August evenings."

2. Summer, by Edith Wharton.
Among the lesser known of Wharton's books, but one Joseph Conrad called his favorite, Summer tells of a summer in the life of Charity Royall, set in a "sunburnt village." This is a deceptively simple story that raises complex questions and deals with complicated emotions -- the effects of pride, the implications of sexuality, the results of circumscribed possibilities, the power of traditions and the limits of responsibilities. A lot for one season.

3. The Greengage Summer, by Rumer Godden.
A dream-like story of the five thoroughly English, middle-class Grey children (ages ranging roughly from 7 to 16), whose mother decides to teach them unselfishness by taking them to visit World War I battlefields in France. Mother, however, falls ill, is hospitalized, and the children are left alone to deal with the foreign French and, at times, the even more foreign adults. Like the slow, hot summer, the book heats up, with the children observing and being influenced by the less-inhibited French. For the Greys, the greengage summer is a time to simultaneously take pleasure in and feel the pain of maturing -- physically and emotionally.

4. The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn, and The Summer Game, by Roger Angell (and you could throw in David Halberstam's Summer of '49).
My father was Commissioner of Baseball in my hometown, and he taught me to love the game (as well as teaching me how to throw, catch and keep score), so I have always loved baseball books. Angell's is a collection of his writings on baseball from the New Yorker in the 1960s; Kahn's is narrower, dealing with the Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s. Halberstam focused especially on Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, at a time when baseball was truly the dominant sport in America. Going to a baseball game, preferably with my glove in my backpack and a scorecard for following the finer points, is always one of the highlights of my summers.

5. "Once More to the Lake," an essay by E.B. White.
Although this doesn't qualify as a book, I include it here in the hope that reading it might lead you to Essays of E.B. White (published in 1977), where it was reprinted after first appearing in 1941 in Harper's magazine. You can't go wrong with White. Everything he wrote speaks volumes, but here, in this depiction of one summer when White took his son to a lake where his own family had gone in his childhood years from 1904 on, is the essence of one man's memories of summer long gone: "Summertime, oh summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweet fern and the juniper forever and ever, summer without end."

--Ev Small

What do you like to read when snow keeps you inside?

With the electorate growing impatient with President Obama and his message of hope and change (witness the Massachusetts surprise, Sen. Scott Brown), author Anthony Scioli has some advice for a leader -- and a nation -- trying to keep hope alive in the face of adversity. In "Hope in the Age of Anxiety: A Guide to Understanding and Strengthening Our Most Important Virtue," published by Oxford University Press, Scioli and co-author Henry Biller dig into the religious, psychological, philosophical traditions of hope to help steer the anxious toward ways of coping with hard times. Scioli is a professor of clinical psychology at Keene State College. Biller is a professor of clinical psychology at The University of Rhode Island.

GUEST BLOGGER: Anthony Scioli

For more than two decades I have been studying hope. Before Barack Obama and all that he embodies in terms of hope and change, I was already fixated on this great virtue. Although trained as a clinical psychologist, it was apparent to me that hope was a universal matter, one that transcended the therapy office, cancer ward, prison cell, chapel, or temple. The need for hope was a core facet of human nature which found expression in art, literature, science, and yes, even politics.

Napoleon, whom I would consider more optimistic than hopeful, believed that "every leader is a dealer in hope." I would modify his dictum slightly to suggest that great leaders are strong hope providers. Here, I outline my theory of hope, and offer a different kind of twelve-step program for President Obama and other would-be leaders.

Each of the twelve steps represents a layer of hope. I intersperse some thoughts, suggestions, and historical examples to go with each step. I conclude with an admittedly informal, but not entirely tongue-in-cheek, assessment of President Obama's hope profile.

Hope is a complex emotion. It can vary in expression from one person to another, by culture and nation as well across different religious or spiritual beliefs systems. And yet hope can always be traced back to one or more of these four basic needs; mastery, attachment, survival, and spirituality. A good hope provider will, in the course of their leadership, address most, if not all, of these needs.

The three mastery steps
1 -- Focus on higher goals, offer a vision. John F. Kennedy: "We will put a man on the moon by this decade's end."
2 -- Empower the masses; set achievable goals. Suggestion: More job training to cut unemployment.
3 -- Create collaborative ventures. Martin Luther King: "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."

The three attachment steps
4 -- Build appropriate trust, don't oversell transparency. Thomas Jefferson: "I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs."
5 -- Cultivate openness. Suggestion: Copy the British: Offer more public, less scripted debates.
6 -- Promise a continued presence. Suggestion: Do not abandon the veterans. Even the Roman legions knew enough to request contributions to insure the proper burial of fallen comrades.

The three survival steps
7 -- Reduce fear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
8 -- Promise protection. Suggestion: Katrina must never happen again.
9 -- Inspire resiliency. Winston Churchill: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields. ... We shall fight in the hills; We shall never surrender."

The three spiritual steps
10 -- Cultivate spiritual empowerment. Abraham Lincoln: "... from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion."
11 -- Spiritual presence. Mahatma Gandhi: "Those who submit will have forsaken their God."
12 -- Provide spiritual assurance. Suggestion: Counter extremist interpretations of "jihad" by emphasizing its root meaning as a form of struggle for good, a universal religious theme.

Grading President Obama: How does President Obama stack up in terms of the mastery, attachment, survival, and spiritual dimensions of hope? By my estimation, he gets high marks for Intelligence (90 for mastery), Sincerity (90 for Attachment), Calmness (95 for survival), and Spiritual Assurance (90 for spirituality). But he needs to improve his Vision (75 for mastery), Emotional Range (75 for attachment), Toughness (80 for survival), and spiritually-focused inspiration (80 for spirituality). If I average these ratings, it would yield a solid B (84). As spring will follow winter, there is still hope for hope.

Go to the comments section and tell us your grading of President Obama.

President Obama has recently sent strong political signals that he hopes to reduce the deficit while still maintaining support for a weak economy. Success will require a deft tightrope walk. In "The Age of Deficits: Presidents and Unbalanced Budgets from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush," recently published by University Press of Kansas, Iwan Morgan offers a historical perspective on Obama's challenge. Morgan is a professor of U.S. studies and deputy director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London.

GUEST BLOGGER: Iwan Morgan

How Barack Obama deals with the mammoth budget deficit will be a defining issue of his presidency. The United States has to get federal borrowing under control before the debt-GDP ratio becomes unsustainable in the mid 21 century. This may seem like a manana issue but the longer it is left unaddressed, the more difficult it becomes to solve. In dealing with the deficit, the 44th president can find some lessons from history to guide him.

Deciding the right time to shift from fiscal stimulus to help the economy to fiscal restraint to reduce the deficit will be crucial. Moving too soon will make the long-term problem of deficit control more difficult because it will impair restoration of economic growth, the surest means of boosting tax revenues.

On this score, Obama should heed the error committed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Convinced that the Depression was effectively over and anxious to head off inflation, FDR sought a balanced budget in 1937. However, the premature removal of fiscal stimulus choked off the recovery and sent the economy into renewed recession, from which it only emerged in World War II.

Conversely, if Obama changes course too late, he will lack political credibility as a deficit hawk -- like George W. Bush, who became a born-again budget balancer only when facing a Democratic Congress in 2007.

The president should use the bully pulpit to prepare and educate the American people about the need for fiscal change. Presidents who change fiscal course abruptly without properly educating the public as to its necessity tend to lose popular support. This happened to Jimmy Carter when he shifted from stimulus to battling inflation in 1978 and George H. W. Bush when he accepted tax increases to combat the deficit in 1990.

Similarly, as Bill Clinton discovered to his cost when raising taxes as part of his deficit control initiative of 1993, the president must persuade the public that sacrifice is needed. The challenge facing Obama is to teach a new reality as FDR did in the Depression -- this requires informative and concrete rhetoric to explain the options rather than fine-sounding generalizations.

Despite the current intensity of partisan divisions, it is still important to continue searching for bipartisan agreement. During periods of deficit growth in the recent past, the most significant budget control initiatives had bipartisan support, notably Ronald Reagan's 1982 budget compromise, the 1990 budget deal, and the Balanced Budget Act negotiated by Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich in 1997. Provided they are real rather than gimmicky, bipartisan deals tend to be long-lasting and can lead to further consensual action.

The only significant anti-deficit program that lacked bipartisan support was Clinton's 1993 initiative but this made the budget the focal point of partisan conflict for the next three years. At present, of course, there is little hope of the parties acting together. However, as Clinton showed in the government shutdown battles of 1995-96, the president can gain credit with the public by eschewing rancour and intractability, thereby making it difficult for the opposition party to resist popular preference for compromise.

One way of depoliticizing the budget process is to create a special bipartisan commission to make policy recommendations on deficit control. The most successful example was the Social Security commission established by Ronald Reagan to recommend ways of ensuring program solvency. However, the congressional Democrats also had an interest in backing its 1983 report.

Other bipartisan commissions have not proved effective because the political will to support their recommendations was absent. The lesson of history is that the budget problem is fundamentally about politics rather than policy since party identity is fundamentally bound up with issues of taxation and spending. Experts sitting on commissions can devise fiscal proposals, but only politicians can convert these into reality.

Hence, President Obama should not stop working for bipartisanship because failure to control the deficit will have devastating consequences. The bottom line is that its descent into unsustainability constitutes one of the greatest threats facing America.

Our colleague, Chris Cillizza of The Fix, asked readers to recommend their favorite political fiction and nonfiction books. Here's the list, so far.

To see how the list came together, go to The Fix

FICTION
"Jack Gance" by Ward Just
"The Wanting of Levine" by Michael Halberstam
"The People's Choice" by Jeff Greenfield
"The Last Hurrah" by Edwin O'Connor
"The Shad Treatment" by Garrett Epps
"The Woody" by Peter Lefcourt
"The Ninth Wave" by Eugene Burdick
"Advise and Consent" by Allen Drury
"The Gay Place" by William Brammer
"Seven Days in May" by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey
"Lincoln" by Gore Vidal

NON FICTION
"The Power Broker" by Robert Caro
"The Survivor: Bill Clinton In the White House" By John F. Harris
"The Politicos" by Matthew Josephson
"Politician" by Ronnie Dugger
"Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky
"City for Sale" by Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett
"Who Governs" by Robert Dahl

NON FICTION (Cont.)
"Boys on the Bus" by Tim Crouse
"The Prince" by Machiavelli
"Huey Long" by T. Harry Williams
"Earl of Louisiana" by A.J. Liebling
"Southern Politics in State and Nation" by V.O. Key
"The Ambition and the Power" by John M. Barry
"Hardball" by Chris Matthews
"The Power Game" by Hedrick Smith
"Man of the House" by Tip O'Neill
"Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein
"The Selling of the President" by Joe McGinnis
"What I Saw at the Revolution" by Peggy Noonan
"Enduring Revolution" by Major Garrett
"Boss" by Mike Royko
"Bad Boy: The Life and Politics of Lee Atwater" by John Brady
"Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms" by Ed Rollins
"RFK" by Jack Newfield
"Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream" by Doris Kearns Goodwin
"Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" by Hunter S. Thompson
"When Hell Froze Over" by Dwayne Yancey
"The Making of the President 1960" by Teddy White
"Path to Power"/" Means of Ascent"/ " Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro
"The Future of American Politics" by Samuel Lubell
"The Real Majority: The Classic Examination of the American Electorate" by Ben Wattenberg and Richard Scammon.
"Conscience of a Conservative" by Barry Goldwater
"The Last Hayride" by John Maginnis
"Politics Lost" by Joe Klein
" Marathon" by Jules Witcover
"Truman" by David McCullough
"President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime" By Lou Cannon
"The Best and the Brightest" by David Halbertsam
"Wallace" by Marshall Frady
"Lincoln" by David Herbert Donald
"1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs--The Election that Changed the Country" by James Chace