Scan barcode
alturner27's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
This book argues (correctly in my opinion) that we need to make more space for the low points in our lives. To truly and unapologetically withdraw within ourselves in order to weather grief and depression is needed. We need to accept this need not only as individuals, but as a society as a whole.
I read this while in my own winter that I was actively fighting. While I feel she went on tangents now and then, she was good about bringing each story back around by the end of each chapter.
I definitely recommend this book. For me, it not only helped me make space for my much needed winter, it also helped me not feel so alone in my struggles.
I read this while in my own winter that I was actively fighting. While I feel she went on tangents now and then, she was good about bringing each story back around by the end of each chapter.
I definitely recommend this book. For me, it not only helped me make space for my much needed winter, it also helped me not feel so alone in my struggles.
knitwitchvivi's review against another edition
3.0
Did anyone else read this and spend the entire time thinking she was dying of bowel cancer?? Just me?? I swear there was no point in the book where she explained that no, the tests showed she did not have cancer, so I spent the whole time thinking an entirely different thing. It was still filled with lovely descriptions about taking time to rest, but the book as a whole didn’t quite land for me.
brbooks's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this book a lot. Did a joint read with my best friend. It’s a wonderful way to acknowledge the times in our lives when we need a pause. I really appreciated how she said natures don’t try to pretend it’s not winter and keep going. It acknowledges it and hunkers down. I think this is a great example of taking time to let yourself heal.
In our society it seems that you are only what you produce. If you aren’t going going going you are failing. We all need to let ourselves “winter” more.
In our society it seems that you are only what you produce. If you aren’t going going going you are failing. We all need to let ourselves “winter” more.
lizzyingram's review against another edition
3.0
I love the concept of wintering and there were certainly tidbits of wisdom here, but I felt like this was disjointed in how she made it a memoir combined with self help. Some sections I found altogether boring.
harry_bunting's review against another edition
reflective
fast-paced
Basically a journal of someone trying 4 or 5 new things during a difficult period in their life and then shoehorning in some twee observations about ‘wintering’. I think it’s very telling that in the epilogue the author talks about how the idea for this book started out as a much bigger, more expansive idea, but ended up ‘looking in her own back yard’. Yeah I can tell mate!!
itsautumntime's review against another edition
5.0
Wildly beautiful.
Favorite quotes:
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.
If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.
If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression. We’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high and moments when we can’t bear to get out of bed. Both are normal. Both in fact require a little perspective.
In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. An occasional sharp wintering would do us good. 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. We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.
Favorite quotes:
Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.
If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.
If we don’t allow ourselves the fundamental honesty of our own sadness, then we miss an important cue to adapt. We seem to be living in an age when we’re bombarded with entreaties to be happy, but we’re suffering from an avalanche of depression. We’re urged to stop sweating the small stuff, yet we’re chronically anxious. I often wonder if these are just normal feelings that become monstrous when they’re denied. A great deal of life will always suck. There will be moments when we’re riding high and moments when we can’t bear to get out of bed. Both are normal. Both in fact require a little perspective.
In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. An occasional sharp wintering would do us good. 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. We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.
cjschachinger's review against another edition
5.0
Absolutely loved this cozy little book. I enjoyed Katherine’s voice and look forwards to also having a physical copy. Such lovely perspectives.