Reviews for Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season

The average rating for Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-21 00:00:00 Scott Malone I picked this up for $1 at a used bookstore and put it aside for a wintry day. (I should be careful what I ask for.) We were without power for 26 hours during an ice storm so I decided to chill my mind as well by reading about winter. On the one hand, I appreciate the work of the editors in compiling and grouping the essays and poems into five sections. On the other hand the introductions to each 1-3 page selection were completely unnecessary, often longer than the selections themselves, and I found them to be a negative piece to the puzzle. After a few I simply skipped them. I will probably keep this on hand to be a cold weather companion. The best surprise was Barry Lopez, whose essay on the Arctic was chilling and beautifully written. John Updike provided me with a better experience than I've had from him, and also this quotation: "Cold challenges the blood; it sets the cheeks to tingling and the brain to percolating. By making the indoors cozy, it encourages intellectual activity. On the map of Europe, the statistics for readership go down as the latitude becomes southerly; a warm climate invites citizens outdoors, to the sidewalk cafe, the promenade, the brain-lulling beach. I like winter because it locks me indoors with my books, my word processor, and my clear and brittle thoughts."Annie Dillard has several features in this book, and this was a section of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."I bloom indoors in the winter like a forced forsythia; I come in to come out. At night I read and write, and things I have never understood become clear; I reap the harvest of the rest of the year's planting."

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-28 00:00:00 Kimberly Samuelson This wasn't as lyrical or uplifting as I expected and the editors introduction to each piece added very little and probably detracted. However, there was one short story about a young man and his grandfather who resides in a nursing home that was beautiful and heart-breaking and worth the read.