Reviews

Stories For Winter by British Library, Simon Thomas

Only show reviews with written explanations

krobart's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Stories for Winter is British Library Women Writers’ seasonal collection of 14 stories set in winter. They are arranged chronologically (sort of), starting with a story from 1902 by Edith Wharton and ending with one by Angela Carter for which a date is not given but may have been published in 1974. Most of them deal in some way with changes to society that affect women.

rianm's review against another edition

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funny medium-paced

4.0

krobart's review

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4.0

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2024/01/01/review-2291-stories-for-winter-and-nights-by-the-fire/

bekab20's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

amalia1985's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

‘’When the sun goes down, it is very cold and then I easily start crying because the winter moon presses my heart. The winter moon is surrounded by an extraordinary darkness, the logical antithesis of the supernal clarity of the day. In this darkness, the dogs in every household howl together at the sight of a star, as if the stars were unnatural things. But from morning until evening, a hallucinatory light floods the shore and a cool, glittering sun transfigures everything so brilliantly that the beach looks like a desert and the ocean like a mirage.’’

The Reckoning (Edith Wharton): A woman who used to believe in certain unconventional ideas regarding marriage, finds herself a victim of her ideology due to her scoundrel of a husband. So, before we jump on the bandwagon of dubious motos, we’d better take a step back and think twice. Written in Wharton’s unmistakable, haunting, bittersweet voice, a momentary ode to the dark streets of New York.

‘’You think you know what it is to be cold, Frances,’’ she said. ‘’You don’t. You had better pray that you never may! It is to feel yourself gradually losing all human sensation; to feel that where there should be glowing moving blood there is motionless ice; to feel that the very atmosphere about you is not the atmosphere of every day, warm with the breath of your fellow creatures, but something rarified until its chill is agony.’’

My Fellow Travellers (Mary Angela Dickens): Written by Dickens’s eldest grandchild, this is the story of a teacher who becomes witness to an uncanny scene on a train. A haunting ghost story told in moving detail.

‘’New York must be full of suffering of one kind or another on a day like this. Just go out and spend it looking for the coldest woman in New York, or the saddest woman, or the most overworked woman, or the most anything woman in New York, and come back and write a story about her.’’

The Woman Who Was So Tired (Elizabeth Banks): Some piece of mission, right? In a deeply tender, profound story, a young reporter has to wander in wintery New York to find the woman with the ‘’best’’ story.

‘’She was outside on the step, gazing at the winter afternoon. Rain was falling, and with the rain it seemed the dark came too, spinning down like ashes. There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and the new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses opposite. Dimly they burned as if regretting something. And people hurried by, hidden under their hateful umbrellas.’’

Doesn’t this passage bring tears to your eyes with its beauty?

A Cup of Tea (Katherine Mansfield): A wealthy young woman believes she has stumbled upon a scene out of Dostoevsky’s stories. But it is arrogance, not kindness that leads her to an act of empty ‘’mercy’’ Written in Mansfield’s superbly haunting, acidic tone.

‘’There is a special quality about a December sunset. The ruffles of red-gold gradually untightening, the congested mauve islands on a transparent sea of green, the ultimate luminous primrose dissolving into violet powder and the cold, biting night, lit up by strange patches of colour that have somehow been forgotten in the sky.’’

A Motor (Elizabeth Bibesco): Two people enjoying the cold December weather find themselves facing broken love affairs. Two motors become the metaphor for the feelings that haunt our steps.

Ann Lee’s (Elizabeth Bowen): A shopping experience turns mysteriously sinister when a man enters a hat shop igniting a strange interaction. One of the finest and most cryptic stories by Bowen.

‘’One has to face most things alone,’’ said Elizabeth, ‘’but it’s worth it.’’

The Snowstorm (Violet M. MacDonald): A snowy day provides the setting for the elopement of a peculiar ‘’illicit’’ couple in a haunting, reflective, and eerie story.

November Fair/ Ffair Gaeaf (Kate Roberts, translated from Welsh by Joseph P. Clancy): The aches and joys of a lively group of people within a single day, the day of the November Fair.

My Life With R.H.Macy (Shirley Jackson): An endless sequence of numbers, memos and a protagonist that has six numbers instead of a name. It’s her first time as a shop assistant at Macy’s, but will she return for her third day?

The Cold (Sylvia Townsend Warner): Mrs Ryder - one of the most exhausting characters you’ll ever meet in the pages of a book - manages to turn the annual common cold into an outrageous social criticism, based on her prejudices.

The Prisoner (Elizabeth Berridge): I’m sorry, but am I supposed to be moved by the wet dream of an idiotic middle-aged virgin who decides to fancy a young German POW? Really, girl? Tell your dramatic story about wanting a dick between your fat legs to the ones who were massacred in the concentration camps by the Nazi monsters. And she thinks that the Russians are monsters? Guess again, ‘’lady’’...

This story should NOT have been included in this collection. It is disrespectful, out of place, and frankly? Extremely badly written!

‘’But the roads were grey, the houses were grey, the rocks were grey. The wind was grey; and salty grey - like a licked seashore pebble- tasted the cold air in one’s mouth.

Judith loved everything deeply.

The Cut Finger ( Frances Bellery): Young Judith believes that a trip to the seaside in the heart of winter is going to be an exciting adventure. The truth, though, will break her heart.

The Thames Spread Out (Elizabeth Taylor): A middle-aged woman waits for her lover across a flooded landscape. Father Thames has risen, prompting her to contemplate her failures, leading a life of affairs with married men, living on the expenses provided for her…services. Strangely enough, Taylor manages to create a story of haunting beauty, built on a character that you can’t help but like.

The Smile of Winter (Angela Carter): Naturally, the last word belongs to the one and only Angela Carter and her achingly beautiful musings on winter.

A collection marvellously edited and introduced by Simon Thomas. I can assure you a man does know how to compose an anthology of stories written by women. Perhaps if some of you weren't so absorbed by the latest pseudo-feministic cries and dying your hair green, purple or pink, you'd have the chance to sit down and read a proper book…But I guess that would require an immense effort on your part…And if you can’t ‘’find’’ the connection between these stories and winter, you need to have your brains checked.

‘’Do not think I don’t realise what I am doing. I am making composition using the following elements: the winter beach; the winter moon; the ocean; the women; the pine trees; the riders; the driftwood; the shells; the shapes of darkness and the shapes of water; and the refuse. these are all inimical to my loneliness because of their indifference to it. Out of these pieces of inimical indifference, I intend to represent the desolate smile of winter which, as you must have gathered, is the smile I wear.’’

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/