A review by wardenred
Winterlust: Finding Beauty in the Fiercest Season by Bernd Brunner

informative inspiring slow-paced

4.0

Do you remember the first time you felt snow on your skin? When you thought you could smell it? When your ears hurt so badly that you couldn’t think of anything except the closest source of warmth?

This book is pretty much a meditation on all the ways humanity has experienced winter through the centuries / across the globe. It goes back and forth between depictions of culture, traditions, and ways of living; lyrical passages beautifully evoking the sensory experience of winter in various settings; and scientific data related to various aspects of the coldest season. 

I've got to say I found the transitions between these three distinct types of writing rather jarring at times. Here I am, all settled into one of those lyrical parts, imagining myself walking through a winter forest, and then suddenly there's an assault of numbers and physics- or meteorology-related facts. Or I'm focused on digesting the information about the Native American way of winter living, and then suddenly, there's a page of generic winterly lyricism. That happened more than ones throughout the book and took me out of the reading every time. It didn't help that the science-y parts in particular were rather dense and disjointed at the same time. The other two types of writing are a lot stronger. 

Aside from that, though, the book was an enjoyable experience. I learned a lot of cool interesting factoids about a variety of cultures, refreshed others in my mind, and got lots of delicious winter vibes. I just wish the structure was somewhat more solid!