11 Of The Coziest Fall Scenes From Books

Autumn is the best season for book lovers, not only because it's the perfect weather for staying in and reading, but because it's the ideal time to sip warm tea, huddle under a blanket, and bask in the loveliness of the coziest fall scenes from books. When it comes to seasonal reading, nothing beats the comforts falling leaves outside your window.

The fall is one of literature's favorite seasons. Between the beautiful imagery of golden sunsets against blood red leaves, the metaphorical significance of the changing seasons — death, rebirth, and the cycle of life — and the the wealth of symbols the season offers, autumn is a gold mine for creative writers and authors, old and new. Emily Dickinson found inspiration in its dreariness, Emily Bronte found beauty in its annual changes, L.M. Montgomery found pure joy in its arrival, and many other writers have shared their love for the season through their writing. With such perfect weather and beautiful scenery, can you blame them?

But soon enough, the leaves will all be gone and we'll be buried under three feet of snow. Before the seasons change, make time to enjoy these 11 of the coziest fall scenes from books.

1.“It was one of those sumptuous days when the world is full of autumn muskiness and tangy, crisp perfection: vivid blue sky, deep green fields, leaves in a thousand luminous hues. It is a truly astounding sight when every tree in a landscape becomes individual, when each winding back highway and plump hillside is suddenly and infinitely splashed with every sharp shade that nature can bestow - flaming scarlet, lustrous gold, throbbing vermilion, fiery orange.”

― Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away

2. “Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple.”

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

3. “There was a filmy veil of soft dull mist obscuring, but not hiding, all objects, giving them a lilac hue, for the sun had not yet fully set; a robin was singing ... The leaves were more gorgeous than ever; the first touch of frost would lay them all low to the ground. Already one or two kept constantly floating down, amber and golden in the low slanting sun-rays.”

― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

4. “Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

― George Eliot, George Eliot's Life, as Related in Her Letters and Journals

5. “It was October again ... a glorious October, all red and gold, with mellow mornings when the valleys were filled with delicate mists as if the spirit of autumn had poured them in for the sun to drain — amethyst, pearl, silver, rose, and smoke-blue. The dews were so heavy that the fields glistened like cloth of silver and there were such heaps of rustling leaves in the hollows of many-stemmed woods to run crisply through.”

— L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

6. “But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”

― Stephen King, Salem's Lot

7. “It was one of those perfect fall days when the air is cool enough to wake you up but the sun is also kissing your face.”

— Anita Diamant, The Boston Girl

8. “It was a beautiful bright autumn day, with air like cider and a sky so blue you could drown in it.”

― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

9. “Autumn was her happiest season. There was an expectancy about its sounds and shapes: the distant thunk pomp of leather and young bodies on the practice field near her house made her think of bands and cold Coca-Colas, parched peanuts and the sight of people's breath in the air. There was even something to look forward to when school started - renewals of old feuds and friendships, weeks of learning again what one half forgot in the long summer. Fall was hot-supper time with everything to eat one missed in the morning when too sleepy to enjoy it.”

― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

10. “There is a particular kind of afternoon sun that exists only in autumn. A golden light drapes itself over the world of that hour. It falls through the afternoon sky, fine and faint as a swirl of cigarette smoke caught in the wind, nearly transparent. So sweet, that light, insisting softly, goldly against the windows.”

― Ayana Mathis, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

11. "Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;Lengthen night and shorten day;Every leaf speaks bliss to meFluttering from the autumn tree."

— Emily Brontë, "Fall, Leaves, Fall"

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