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What is a more wintering activity than curling up with a comforting book for an extended period of time and then discussing that comforting title with your very best bookish friends? We couldn’t think of one either, so please make plans to join us on Friday, December 10th, 2021 at 7:30pm CST as we discuss our final Virtual Book Club title of 2021, A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn. Sign up here and don’t forget to let us know what  books you’d like to discuss in 2022!

Katherine May is a New York Times Bestselling author who lives in Whitstable, UK with her husband, son, three cats, and a dog. Her non-fiction works include today’s title, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, and her memoir of being autistic, The Electricity of Every Living Thing. She is the editor of the anthology of essays on motherhood, The Best, Most Awful Job. She has several fiction works, including Diving In (Book one of The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club) and Burning Out. All in addition to her journalism, essays, and writing courses.

Nikki brought this nonfiction title to my attention several months ago as we were trying to choose titles from her holds list that we could buddy read – mostly with the intent of posting, but possibly just for us because it seemed to be an appropriate and desirable read for our season of life. Wintering has been an eyeopener of a book for me to understand what happens in a person’s life – but especially what has been happening in mine. Katherine May reminds readers that as humans we are all connected to the earth and her cycles. But, modern, industrial, city life has taken us away from the rhythms our bodies used to experience when we lived by the seasons. We used to have different daily rhythms, like that of sleeping longer in winter, or what household chores were accomplished in which season. Now our lives are not as dictated by these cycles of light and dark, warmth and cold, so our bodies and life have compensated, almost forced upon us, the process of wintering as a coping mechanism for the protection of the self. Wintering is a way to retreat from the world to re-energize for the summer times. (Additionally, cue all the Winter is Coming and Sweet, Summer Child vibes from Game of Thrones.)

Wintering looks different for each person, but it is always a slowing down of busyness and accomplishing only what is essential to survive the cycle of this particular winter. When I look back on some of my recent past years, not even taking into consideration the winter of this global pandemic, there have been many winter seasons, some overlapping, but each expounding upon the other so that I have been in a constant winter season. With rare Indian Summer periods where I could pull out of one layer of winter before realizing it didn’t ameliorate any of the others. May explains that too. She goes from having her husband experience an emergency appendectomy right around her fortieth birthday, to her personal health issues that made her have to leave the employment she had worked so hard to achieve, to her son’s trouble with traditional schooling all during the one winter season she’s writing about. She does go on to connect this winter season with past winter seasons in her life where she learned some sort of coping mechanism that is helping her get past this winter season in a better mental and physical state.

The best part of this entire book is the way she gives us permission, with examples from nature – like honeybees and hibernating dormice – and other cultures – like how to sauna – to actually take the time and efforts we need physically, mentally, and emotionally to get us through our personal winters. That wintering is not a weakness but it makes us vulnerable, but each winter season we grow through prepares us to better accept and survive the next one. I’m giving Wintering 4.5 stars, because I don’t think I’ll re-read the title, but I am most certainly interested and planning on reading the rest of May’s works, especially her nonfiction. 

~Ashley

Ashley shared that I brought today’s title to her radar, and, as expected, Anne Bogel brought it to mine.  She recommended it on episode #267 of What Should I Read Next Podcast back in January, so naturally, like I do, I recommended it and waited…for months.  And readers, during the first cold snap of the year feels like a great time to read Wintering by Katherine May, but also, just the season of winter (either nature’s or your own) is a fabulous time to read this book.  Let me be clear here, this is the book I needed last fall, when we were just six months into covid-times and I had another eight months of mostly being in my house with my people.  It would have been so SO instructive, but also, it was really helpful now.  May carefully describes the process of wintering and the stages with nature’s season as an example of how the experience of a personal winter feels, and I’m so very grateful for her work in this.  It feels magical to be seen (although she’s really seeing herself, which I get) and to know that I’m not the only one who’s had an experience (or several, let’s be real) like this, and certainly not the only one who’s had such an experience in the last two years.  

One thing that feels essential to know about May before reading Wintering, and which I hope will help convince you to pick up this book, is that job Ashley mentioned she had to leave – the course leader of a creative writing program.  Why is this essential information?  Because her writing lives up to my expectations knowing that.  Her phrasing is melodic and the tone is soothing.  This title is a joy to read, not only because of May’s writing, but also because the topic is important.  We live in a culture of more, and, as May points out, this attitude leads to more depression and more anxiety.  Winter is a time that we’ll all face, whether we want to or not, whether we accept it or not. 

“We must stop believing that these times in our lives are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower.  We must stop trying to ignore them or dispose of them.  They are real, and they are asking something of us.”  

As I have been tip-toeing my way out of a particular winter over the last five months, I’m feeling the thaw in some ways, and yet the freezing in others (and not just outside).  Wintering is a great reminder to consider, care for myself, and notice my feelings and my reactions to life.  I’m giving this book five enthusiastic stars, I’m looking forward to reading May’s other titles, and I’m likely to reread this title because I think another read through would include a lot of gleaning of the amazing ideas and perspectives May offers readers though this book.  

What’s a book that hit you in the feels and left you wanting to dive back in again, even if that is eventually?

~Nikki 

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