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Seasons
Winter: An Anthology for the Changing Seasons
Winter is a quiet and dark and cold. But in the dim light frost shimmers, stars twinkle and hearths blaze as we come together to keep out the chill. In spite of the season, life visiting birds fill our skies, familiar creatures find clever ways to survive, and the world reveals winter riches to those willing to venture outdoors.
In prose and poetry spanning seven hundred years,
Winter delights in the brisk pleasures and enduring beauty of the year's turning. Featuring new writing from Patrick Barkham, Satish Kumar and Anita Sethi, extracts from the work of Robert Macfarlane, James Joyce and Kathleen Jamie, and a range of exciting new voices from across the UK, this invigorating collection evokes the joys and the consolations of this magical time of year.
In prose and poetry spanning seven hundred years,
Winter delights in the brisk pleasures and enduring beauty of the year's turning. Featuring new writing from Patrick Barkham, Satish Kumar and Anita Sethi, extracts from the work of Robert Macfarlane, James Joyce and Kathleen Jamie, and a range of exciting new voices from across the UK, this invigorating collection evokes the joys and the consolations of this magical time of year.
234 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 20, 2016
49 people are currently reading
780 people want to read
About the author
Melissa Harrison
14 books243 followersMelissa Harrison is the author of the novels Clay and At Hawthorn Time, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize, and one work of non-fiction, Rain, which was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize. She is a nature writer, critic and columnist for The Times, the Financial Times and the Guardian, among others. Her new novel All Among the Barley is due for publication in August, 2018..
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November 14, 2016
I’m ambivalent about English winters, so was interested to see how the authors collected in Melissa Harrison’s final seasonal anthology would explore its inherent contradictions. I especially appreciated the views of outsiders. Jini Reddy, a Quebec native, calls British winters “a long, grey sigh or a drawn-out ache.” In two of my favorite pieces, Christina McLeish and Nakul Krishna – from Australia and India, respectively – compare the warm, sunny winters they experienced in their homelands with their early experiences in Britain. McLeish remembers finding a disembodied badger paw on a frosty day during one of her first winters in England, while Krishna tells of a time he spent dogsitting in Oxford when all the students were on break. His decorous, timeless prose reminded me of J.R. Ackerley’s.
The series is in support of the Wildlife Trusts, and a key message of this volume in particular is that nature is always there to be experienced – even in what feels like a dead time of year. Kate Blincoe observes an urban starling murmuration in an essay that nicely blends the lofty and the earthy; Nicola Chester takes a wintry beach walk and documents what she finds in the strandline, such as goose barnacles; Joseph Addison celebrates the pleasures of a winter garden; Patrick Barkham examines the ways butterfly life* continues through the winter, usually as eggs; and Richard Adams (author of Watership Down) insists, “Wild flowers are like pubs. There are generally one or two open somewhere, if only you look hard enough.”
As in the other volumes, Harrison has chosen a lovely mixture of older and contemporary pieces. Occasional passages from Gilbert White and Thomas Furly Forster on the timing of natural phenomena help create a sense of chronological progression, from November through to February. The contemporary nature writing scene is represented by previously published material from Robert Macfarlane and Kathleen Jamie. Classic literature is here in the opening of Dickens’s Bleak House and the Great Frost passage from Woolf’s Orlando. There are also excerpts from Coleridge’s diary and freed slave Olaudah Equiano’s account of seeing snow for the first time. In general, this volume is better at including diverse voices, like the final piece from Anita Sethi on her family’s unlikely garden in Manchester.
Christmas doesn’t really appear here; it’s a book about the natural year rather than the cultural year. But another event does, very powerfully: In another of my top few pieces, Jon Dunn (who authored my favorite piece in Autumn) tells how the overpowering darkness of a Shetland winter is broken by the defiant Up Helly Aa festival, in which the residents dress up as Vikings and ceremonially burn a longboat. Life goes on, no matter how bleak everything seems. That’s an important thing to keep in mind after all the troubling events of 2016.
*My husband’s piece, positioned between John Fowles’s and Richard Jeffries’s, is also about the surprising insect life that can be discovered in the winter.
More beautiful lines to treasure:
With thanks to Jennie Condell at Elliott & Thompson for the free copy for review.
Originally published with images and some additional personal reflections on my blog, Bookish Beck.
The series is in support of the Wildlife Trusts, and a key message of this volume in particular is that nature is always there to be experienced – even in what feels like a dead time of year. Kate Blincoe observes an urban starling murmuration in an essay that nicely blends the lofty and the earthy; Nicola Chester takes a wintry beach walk and documents what she finds in the strandline, such as goose barnacles; Joseph Addison celebrates the pleasures of a winter garden; Patrick Barkham examines the ways butterfly life* continues through the winter, usually as eggs; and Richard Adams (author of Watership Down) insists, “Wild flowers are like pubs. There are generally one or two open somewhere, if only you look hard enough.”
As in the other volumes, Harrison has chosen a lovely mixture of older and contemporary pieces. Occasional passages from Gilbert White and Thomas Furly Forster on the timing of natural phenomena help create a sense of chronological progression, from November through to February. The contemporary nature writing scene is represented by previously published material from Robert Macfarlane and Kathleen Jamie. Classic literature is here in the opening of Dickens’s Bleak House and the Great Frost passage from Woolf’s Orlando. There are also excerpts from Coleridge’s diary and freed slave Olaudah Equiano’s account of seeing snow for the first time. In general, this volume is better at including diverse voices, like the final piece from Anita Sethi on her family’s unlikely garden in Manchester.
Christmas doesn’t really appear here; it’s a book about the natural year rather than the cultural year. But another event does, very powerfully: In another of my top few pieces, Jon Dunn (who authored my favorite piece in Autumn) tells how the overpowering darkness of a Shetland winter is broken by the defiant Up Helly Aa festival, in which the residents dress up as Vikings and ceremonially burn a longboat. Life goes on, no matter how bleak everything seems. That’s an important thing to keep in mind after all the troubling events of 2016.
*My husband’s piece, positioned between John Fowles’s and Richard Jeffries’s, is also about the surprising insect life that can be discovered in the winter.
More beautiful lines to treasure:
“Claws of grey rain break to rake through a gold half-light and the squall moves like a huge aerial jellyfish, obscuring then revealing this wreckers’ coast of muted blue headlands. Swirling white snowflakes move against a grey mass, turning Lundy Island into a Turner painting.” (Nicola Chester)
“I am the garnet shock / of rosehip on frost / the robin’s titian flare.” (Julian Beach)
“the tower blocks are advent calendars, / every curtain pulled to reveal a snow-blurred face.” (Liz Berry)
“A whole year of concerns, worries and squabbles sloughed off in a bone-chilling baptism of copper water.” (Matt Gaw)
“Two hundred jackdaws drape the skeleton of the winter beech like jet beads around the neck of a Victorian mourner.” (Jane Adams)
With thanks to Jennie Condell at Elliott & Thompson for the free copy for review.
Originally published with images and some additional personal reflections on my blog, Bookish Beck.
December 26, 2016
The turn of the seasons is steady and relentless. Winter is a time to batten down the hatches, and retreat inside from the weather and darkness. It is also a reboot for the natural world, the cold forces animals and plants to pause, reset and hold with the anticipation of longer days coming soon. But there is life out there if you know where to look, the promise of fresh green to come contained within sticky buds, birds eking out an existence as they flit from branch to branch in search of food. It is a time when you can be faced with biting cold, sparkling light and cloudy breath one day, followed by gale force winds soon after. The sun sits low in the sky, barely warming the earth; the horizontal rays make the stark skeletons of trees stand out against the skyline.
Melissa Harrison in this quite lovely collection of essays, poetry and extracts has drawn together some of our finest writers collective thoughts about this darkest of seasons. There are well known, comforting passages from some of my favourite writers like Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane, new words from Patrick Barkham and a raft of other authors that I now need to go and find out more about. It is a perfect little book for the season, something to read whilst sat in a comfortable armchair up with a glass or two of mulled wine to hand. 4.5 stars
Melissa Harrison in this quite lovely collection of essays, poetry and extracts has drawn together some of our finest writers collective thoughts about this darkest of seasons. There are well known, comforting passages from some of my favourite writers like Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane, new words from Patrick Barkham and a raft of other authors that I now need to go and find out more about. It is a perfect little book for the season, something to read whilst sat in a comfortable armchair up with a glass or two of mulled wine to hand. 4.5 stars
December 12, 2018
I thought that it might be too late to write about a winter book.
The evenings have been growing just a little lighter. Not quite light enough for evening dog walks in the park yet, but they’re definitely lighter than they were.
The first daffodils have been appearing. I love them, and when I took some to my mother last weekend she was absolutely delighted.
And seagulls have been inspecting roofs; reminding me that it’s nearly time to start thinning out Briar’s coat and put the hair out in the garden, so that birds looking for nesting material can pick it up.
But this week winter came back, with cold, with high winds and with sea spray coming right across the garden at high tide.
What could I do but pick up the fourth of these lovely anthologies from my bedside table?
I’ve had a lovely time reading and writing about the first three seasons; and now it seems that the winter anthology doesn’t have to wait for the seasons to turn full circle again after all.
This fourth season has never been my favourite. I dislike the dark mornings and evenings; and the cold, damp, grey, windy weather that envelopes us here in the far south-west of England. I know though that it is necessary; that nature needs to rest and be healed in the winter, as we are when we sleep; and that there is still much to appreciate, when there is time and the weather is right, when we wrap up and go out into the world.
The pattern that this anthology follows is wonderfully familiar to me now. It holds a wealth of short pieces. There is fact and fiction. There is old and new. There are nature writers and writers who just happen to write about nature. They all sit happily together, because they all saw the same natural world around them and captured different aspects of it when they say down to write.
There are variations though, beyond the changing of the seasons. Winter brings more poetry, a little more classic writing, and rather more bird watching than I remember in the three seasons that have passed.
I was also aware that there was a progression from the beginning to the end of winter as I moved through the book. That may well have been there in the earlier volumes, but this was the first time I appreciated it. The richness of these seasonal collections is such that I may notice different things, and different pieces may catch my eye, on a second reading.
“A sharp sugaring frost. The mulberry is at its best in November when it at last undresses itself. It does a sort of striptease before my study window, lightly letting go its leaves in a light breeze that seems to touch only this one tree after the stillness of the frosty night. The leaves float down in twos or threes, or just a single leaf at a time.”
(Those are the words of Roger Deakin.)
Immediately after that I was captivated by a sonnet by a poet I must learn more about; and then by a pitch perfect description of a particular day in a particular place by a writer whose name I had noted when I was reading one of the earlier seasonal collections.
I was so caught up with the nature writing that when I began reading a piece that should have felt very familiar I didn’t place it for a while, and when I did I realised what a difference it can make to your understanding of an author when you focus on just a small part of a very large whole.
‘Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.’
That’s Dickens of course, from ‘Bleak House.’
I am pleased that authors are credited only at the end of each piece, and that I could read without prejudice.
I must mention one more piece of nature writing. I was so taken by an excerpt from Lucy Jones’ book ‘Foxes Unearthed’ that I had to find a copy.
‘We stared at each other, the fox and I, for a charged moment. Her eyes were a pale bronze and seemed bright and aware. She turned away and trotted down the street towards my house. She wasn’t in a rush at all. We walked for a while, her in front, me a few paces behind. In those seconds I got the sense that we were one and the same, mammals, predators, denizens of the earth …’
A contemporary piece by Jacqueline Bain really struck a chord.
Another piece, written centuries earlier but very close to home, made me smile.
‘It was about the beginning of the spring 1757 when I arrived in England, and I was near twelve years of age at that time. I was very much struck with the buildings and the pavement of the streets in Falmouth; and, indeed, any object I saw filled me with new surprise. One morning, when I got upon deck, I saw it covered all over with the snow that fell over-night: as I had never seen any thing of the kind before, I thought it was salt; so I immediately ran down to the mate and desired him, as well as I could, to come and see how somebody in the night had thrown salt all over the deck. He, knowing what it was, desired me to bring some of it down to him: accordingly I took up a handful of it, which I found very cold indeed; and when I brought it to him he desired me to taste it. I did so, and I was surprised beyond measure.’
That comes from ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’ – another book I’d like to know more about.
The quality of the older writing selected from this wonderful. How could it none be when you can draw on writers like Thomas Hardy, Claire Leighton, John Clare, Virginia Woolf …
‘The Great Frost was, historians tell us, the most severe that has ever visited these islands. Birds froze in mid-air and fell like stones to the ground. At Norwich a young countrywoman started to cross the road in her usual robust health and was seen by the onlookers to turn visibly to powder and be blown in a puff of dust over the roofs as the icy blast struck her at the street corner. The mortality among sheep and cattle was enormous. Corpses froze and could not be drawn from the sheets. It was no uncommon sight to come upon a whole herd of swine frozen immovable upon the road. The fields were full of shepherds, ploughmen, teams of horses, and little bird-scaring boys all struck stark in the act of the moment, one with his hand to his nose, another with the bottle to his lips, a third with a stone raised to throw at the ravens who sat, as if stuffed, upon the hedge within a yard of him.’
(From ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf; which has been on my ‘must re-read’ list for a while.)
A piece like that doesn’t sit as naturally as it might with those around it, but how could you leave it out?
Now this is something that I’ve said before but must say again:
When I look at the book as a whole I have to say that some of the pieces spoke to me more than others; and that some of them didn’t really speak to me at all. But that it the way of things when you hear so many different voices, and I can’t say that there were any that didn’t deserve to be heard.
It’s a beautifully produced book; it would make a lovely gift to anyone who loves or is curious about the natural world around them.
I know that I will be revisiting all four anthologies as the cycle of the seasons continues.
The evenings have been growing just a little lighter. Not quite light enough for evening dog walks in the park yet, but they’re definitely lighter than they were.
The first daffodils have been appearing. I love them, and when I took some to my mother last weekend she was absolutely delighted.
And seagulls have been inspecting roofs; reminding me that it’s nearly time to start thinning out Briar’s coat and put the hair out in the garden, so that birds looking for nesting material can pick it up.
But this week winter came back, with cold, with high winds and with sea spray coming right across the garden at high tide.
What could I do but pick up the fourth of these lovely anthologies from my bedside table?
I’ve had a lovely time reading and writing about the first three seasons; and now it seems that the winter anthology doesn’t have to wait for the seasons to turn full circle again after all.
This fourth season has never been my favourite. I dislike the dark mornings and evenings; and the cold, damp, grey, windy weather that envelopes us here in the far south-west of England. I know though that it is necessary; that nature needs to rest and be healed in the winter, as we are when we sleep; and that there is still much to appreciate, when there is time and the weather is right, when we wrap up and go out into the world.
The pattern that this anthology follows is wonderfully familiar to me now. It holds a wealth of short pieces. There is fact and fiction. There is old and new. There are nature writers and writers who just happen to write about nature. They all sit happily together, because they all saw the same natural world around them and captured different aspects of it when they say down to write.
There are variations though, beyond the changing of the seasons. Winter brings more poetry, a little more classic writing, and rather more bird watching than I remember in the three seasons that have passed.
I was also aware that there was a progression from the beginning to the end of winter as I moved through the book. That may well have been there in the earlier volumes, but this was the first time I appreciated it. The richness of these seasonal collections is such that I may notice different things, and different pieces may catch my eye, on a second reading.
“A sharp sugaring frost. The mulberry is at its best in November when it at last undresses itself. It does a sort of striptease before my study window, lightly letting go its leaves in a light breeze that seems to touch only this one tree after the stillness of the frosty night. The leaves float down in twos or threes, or just a single leaf at a time.”
(Those are the words of Roger Deakin.)
Immediately after that I was captivated by a sonnet by a poet I must learn more about; and then by a pitch perfect description of a particular day in a particular place by a writer whose name I had noted when I was reading one of the earlier seasonal collections.
I was so caught up with the nature writing that when I began reading a piece that should have felt very familiar I didn’t place it for a while, and when I did I realised what a difference it can make to your understanding of an author when you focus on just a small part of a very large whole.
‘Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.’
That’s Dickens of course, from ‘Bleak House.’
I am pleased that authors are credited only at the end of each piece, and that I could read without prejudice.
I must mention one more piece of nature writing. I was so taken by an excerpt from Lucy Jones’ book ‘Foxes Unearthed’ that I had to find a copy.
‘We stared at each other, the fox and I, for a charged moment. Her eyes were a pale bronze and seemed bright and aware. She turned away and trotted down the street towards my house. She wasn’t in a rush at all. We walked for a while, her in front, me a few paces behind. In those seconds I got the sense that we were one and the same, mammals, predators, denizens of the earth …’
A contemporary piece by Jacqueline Bain really struck a chord.
Another piece, written centuries earlier but very close to home, made me smile.
‘It was about the beginning of the spring 1757 when I arrived in England, and I was near twelve years of age at that time. I was very much struck with the buildings and the pavement of the streets in Falmouth; and, indeed, any object I saw filled me with new surprise. One morning, when I got upon deck, I saw it covered all over with the snow that fell over-night: as I had never seen any thing of the kind before, I thought it was salt; so I immediately ran down to the mate and desired him, as well as I could, to come and see how somebody in the night had thrown salt all over the deck. He, knowing what it was, desired me to bring some of it down to him: accordingly I took up a handful of it, which I found very cold indeed; and when I brought it to him he desired me to taste it. I did so, and I was surprised beyond measure.’
That comes from ‘The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano’ – another book I’d like to know more about.
The quality of the older writing selected from this wonderful. How could it none be when you can draw on writers like Thomas Hardy, Claire Leighton, John Clare, Virginia Woolf …
‘The Great Frost was, historians tell us, the most severe that has ever visited these islands. Birds froze in mid-air and fell like stones to the ground. At Norwich a young countrywoman started to cross the road in her usual robust health and was seen by the onlookers to turn visibly to powder and be blown in a puff of dust over the roofs as the icy blast struck her at the street corner. The mortality among sheep and cattle was enormous. Corpses froze and could not be drawn from the sheets. It was no uncommon sight to come upon a whole herd of swine frozen immovable upon the road. The fields were full of shepherds, ploughmen, teams of horses, and little bird-scaring boys all struck stark in the act of the moment, one with his hand to his nose, another with the bottle to his lips, a third with a stone raised to throw at the ravens who sat, as if stuffed, upon the hedge within a yard of him.’
(From ‘Orlando’ by Virginia Woolf; which has been on my ‘must re-read’ list for a while.)
A piece like that doesn’t sit as naturally as it might with those around it, but how could you leave it out?
Now this is something that I’ve said before but must say again:
When I look at the book as a whole I have to say that some of the pieces spoke to me more than others; and that some of them didn’t really speak to me at all. But that it the way of things when you hear so many different voices, and I can’t say that there were any that didn’t deserve to be heard.
It’s a beautifully produced book; it would make a lovely gift to anyone who loves or is curious about the natural world around them.
I know that I will be revisiting all four anthologies as the cycle of the seasons continues.
November 29, 2016
I’m finding it difficult to review Winter – An Anthology for the Changing Seasons without repeating all my praise for Summer too.
Once again this anthology is an absolute delight. There really is something for everyone, regardless of whether the reader likes poetry or prose, modern or classical literature, essay or diary.
I found a warming familiarity through the inclusion of old favourites like Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush or Dickens’s Bleak House as these pieces brought back memories from my past as well as reminding me of the season of winter. However, I also found real delight in newer passages from authors I have never encountered before. Emma Kemp’s piece on her walk with her dog, Luka, for example evoked such a strong feeling of solitude and foreboding that it made goosebumps appear on my arms. The senses are indeed, so well catered for in this anthology.
Although each piece is in the anthology on merit, there were a few new to me pieces that resonated with me completely so that I felt the writer had looked into my soul and understood me. Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s letter to Mrs Beecroft summed up exactly how I feel about the winter so that I too believe I am one of those creatures that sleep all winter. I loved too, learning new aspects of nature and new words like ‘broal’ in Jen Hadfileld’s poem that embarrassingly I hadn’t encountered before. Not only does Winter – An Anthology for the Changing Seasons entertain delightfully, it educates too.
The only way to convey just how glorious this book is, is to say, just buy it. I think these anthologies are outstanding, with such rich and eclectic selections, that they are an absolute must for nature lovers everywhere.
Once again this anthology is an absolute delight. There really is something for everyone, regardless of whether the reader likes poetry or prose, modern or classical literature, essay or diary.
I found a warming familiarity through the inclusion of old favourites like Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush or Dickens’s Bleak House as these pieces brought back memories from my past as well as reminding me of the season of winter. However, I also found real delight in newer passages from authors I have never encountered before. Emma Kemp’s piece on her walk with her dog, Luka, for example evoked such a strong feeling of solitude and foreboding that it made goosebumps appear on my arms. The senses are indeed, so well catered for in this anthology.
Although each piece is in the anthology on merit, there were a few new to me pieces that resonated with me completely so that I felt the writer had looked into my soul and understood me. Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s letter to Mrs Beecroft summed up exactly how I feel about the winter so that I too believe I am one of those creatures that sleep all winter. I loved too, learning new aspects of nature and new words like ‘broal’ in Jen Hadfileld’s poem that embarrassingly I hadn’t encountered before. Not only does Winter – An Anthology for the Changing Seasons entertain delightfully, it educates too.
The only way to convey just how glorious this book is, is to say, just buy it. I think these anthologies are outstanding, with such rich and eclectic selections, that they are an absolute must for nature lovers everywhere.
June 6, 2017
I had to give it five stars as it's a fantastic, diverse collection and, well, I've got a small piece in there - just along the way from James Joyce and Thomas Hardy. August company.
March 4, 2018
4.5 stars. This was such a treat. Melissa Harrison has edited books for each of the seasons. Winter was on one side for my Bamburgh trip at the end of Feb and have been reading it this week with Britain well and truly in the depths of Winter. Have been on annual leave but unable to go out very much due to snow so snuggled up and dipped in and out of this beautiful book.
I had some favourite extracts of course and found the poetry harder going but I often need to return to poems a few times to gradually feel it.
Extracts centre on time, place or on specific wildlife. Difficult to pick out favourites as there are many beautiful passages. I loved Annie Worsley's account of Scottish highlands early in the book and Satish Kumar's Dartmoor and of course Henry Tegner's border county of Northumberland. My favourite was Iain Green s writing about a sleeping kingfisher on the edge of a river. Although I really enjoyed the extract of Oxford by Nakul Krishna and the father and daughter who go for a dip in the river!
Some classic Dickens and Shakespeare are perfectly placed and offer a good breadth of writing. A perfect book to have by your side to pick up and put down. Spring next on my list!
I had some favourite extracts of course and found the poetry harder going but I often need to return to poems a few times to gradually feel it.
Extracts centre on time, place or on specific wildlife. Difficult to pick out favourites as there are many beautiful passages. I loved Annie Worsley's account of Scottish highlands early in the book and Satish Kumar's Dartmoor and of course Henry Tegner's border county of Northumberland. My favourite was Iain Green s writing about a sleeping kingfisher on the edge of a river. Although I really enjoyed the extract of Oxford by Nakul Krishna and the father and daughter who go for a dip in the river!
Some classic Dickens and Shakespeare are perfectly placed and offer a good breadth of writing. A perfect book to have by your side to pick up and put down. Spring next on my list!
January 11, 2019
This anthology, mostly consisting of non-fiction, is such a delight.
Quite obviously the link between all these different snippets of stories, poems and observations is winter, which (also obviously) makes this the perfect anthology to read this time of year.
A lot of the stories were centered around the natural world, which is one of my favourite subjects, whether in fiction or non-fiction. I loved the beating heart of nature that pretty much all of these story had in common. The observation that winter is all but void of life.
Winter has never been my favourite season, but this anthology brought me a new appreciation of the bleak world around me at this time of year.
Maybe I would have liked there to be a few more poems in this collection, but overall I loved this anthology and enjoyed every single chapter. I wil definitely check out several of the authors in here.
I would recommend Winter to anyone who loves winter, but also to people (like me) for whom winter seems to drag on and on and who crave the sunlight returning to our worlds.
I am very much looking forward to reading the other seasons in this series over the course of this year.
Quite obviously the link between all these different snippets of stories, poems and observations is winter, which (also obviously) makes this the perfect anthology to read this time of year.
A lot of the stories were centered around the natural world, which is one of my favourite subjects, whether in fiction or non-fiction. I loved the beating heart of nature that pretty much all of these story had in common. The observation that winter is all but void of life.
Winter has never been my favourite season, but this anthology brought me a new appreciation of the bleak world around me at this time of year.
Maybe I would have liked there to be a few more poems in this collection, but overall I loved this anthology and enjoyed every single chapter. I wil definitely check out several of the authors in here.
I would recommend Winter to anyone who loves winter, but also to people (like me) for whom winter seems to drag on and on and who crave the sunlight returning to our worlds.
I am very much looking forward to reading the other seasons in this series over the course of this year.
July 3, 2023
I liked this a lot. I have previously read a nature anthology but found it haphazard as it felt like snippets or excerpts of writing. Credit must go to Melissa Harrison as this collection flowed nicely. (perhaps I have also adjusted to the way anthologies work as well)
I loved all the descriptions of winter. The use of language and imagery was great and I found something very peaceful and soothing about the nature writing. I did however note that Winter in this book was predominantly UK based which is vastly different to Australia. No badgers, squirrels, voles, otters etc.
As I enjoyed this I ordered Autumn from this series which naturally I will read during that season.
I loved all the descriptions of winter. The use of language and imagery was great and I found something very peaceful and soothing about the nature writing. I did however note that Winter in this book was predominantly UK based which is vastly different to Australia. No badgers, squirrels, voles, otters etc.
As I enjoyed this I ordered Autumn from this series which naturally I will read during that season.
November 28, 2020
preferred autumn :(
January 23, 2022
This is everything I wanted from an anthology about the seasons.
February 8, 2022
Another beautifully curated collection of writings about all things Winter.
Cuddle up with a hot tea or coffee, snuggle under your blanket, enjoy.
Cuddle up with a hot tea or coffee, snuggle under your blanket, enjoy.
November 30, 2024
It's a wonderful book full of winter cheer that nature can bring.
dnf
February 18, 2020DNF @ 9%
Attempted this for 'book set during winter' (ok it's about winter) for my reading challenge but I can't continue with it. I thought it was going to be mostly poetry, but it's more like long prose passages about winter which so far are quite samey and use similar descriptions and metaphors: crunchy leaves, glittering spiderwebs etc. All pretty obvious.
Reading on Kindle was difficult as I couldn't see who the author of each passage was or what the topic was until I'd finished it as it's placed at the end of each passage. So I'd be like, 'oh, THAT'S what it was supposed to be about'. Reading the actual book might also help as I imagine there are nice illustrations and things which would break it up a bit.
Just ending it here as I can see this becoming a chore that I end up skimming through to finish.
Attempted this for 'book set during winter' (ok it's about winter) for my reading challenge but I can't continue with it. I thought it was going to be mostly poetry, but it's more like long prose passages about winter which so far are quite samey and use similar descriptions and metaphors: crunchy leaves, glittering spiderwebs etc. All pretty obvious.
Reading on Kindle was difficult as I couldn't see who the author of each passage was or what the topic was until I'd finished it as it's placed at the end of each passage. So I'd be like, 'oh, THAT'S what it was supposed to be about'. Reading the actual book might also help as I imagine there are nice illustrations and things which would break it up a bit.
Just ending it here as I can see this becoming a chore that I end up skimming through to finish.
February 25, 2018
3.5 stars. I must say I’m somewhat disappointed. While still an enjoyable read, I thought this was supposed to be a celebration of winter. Only few entries came across as that. Lots of general sorts of essays and then lots of entries that looked basically like complaints (albeit poetic). Surely there is more to this unique season with its own beauties and charms rather than "it’s so cold and gloomy and miserable and did I mention cold? And is it spring yet?"
January 2, 2020
It was worth reading to discover the spooky poem Lucy Gray by William Wordsworth. I love spooky stuff.
December 19, 2022
Mlle Alice, pouvez-vous nous raconter votre rencontre avec Winter ?
"Sur le papier, il correspondait exactement à ce que je recherchais pour terminer l'année : un livre qui parle de l'hiver, de la nature, avec des textes plutôt courts... J'étais toute prête à m'émerveiller."
Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Melissa Harrison, qui est elle-même l'auteur d'une chronique sur la nature, a rassemblé des textes sur les quatre saisons dans quatre ouvrages différents, ici l'hiver."
Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"Si cela avait été ma première expérience de lecture de 'Nature Writing', je me serais sûrement dit que ce n'était pas un genre pour moi. Mais heureusement, j'ai déjà lu d'excellents ouvrages sur ce sujet, que je n'ai pas juste aimés mais adorés, composés de nouvelles, un format qui n'est pas celui que je préfère pourtant. Le problème est donc ailleurs si je n'ai pas accroché avec celui-ci et, ce n'est rien de le dire. Le problème n'est pas que c'est mauvais mais pour tout dire, sur plus de 80 textes, seulement 4 ou 5 ont vraiment éveillés mon intérêt. La plupart ne font qu'une page ou deux, et sont de simples descriptions, sans réel propos et ça, définitivement, ce n'est pas pour moi. Enfin, cerise sur le gâteau, je n'ai pas non plus aimé que le titre et l'auteur soient toujours placés à la fin de l'extrait (ou du poème, ou de la nouvelle...). J'aime bien savoir ce que je lis."
Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"Bref, je suis passée à côté mais je suis consciente que ce qui ne m'a pas plu peut en séduire d'autres. C'est d'ailleurs un ouvrage qui est très apprécié en général. En attendant, il m'aura au moins servi à étendre mon vocabulaire anglais."
http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...
"Sur le papier, il correspondait exactement à ce que je recherchais pour terminer l'année : un livre qui parle de l'hiver, de la nature, avec des textes plutôt courts... J'étais toute prête à m'émerveiller."
Dites-nous en un peu plus sur son histoire...
"Melissa Harrison, qui est elle-même l'auteur d'une chronique sur la nature, a rassemblé des textes sur les quatre saisons dans quatre ouvrages différents, ici l'hiver."
Mais que s'est-il exactement passé entre vous ?
"Si cela avait été ma première expérience de lecture de 'Nature Writing', je me serais sûrement dit que ce n'était pas un genre pour moi. Mais heureusement, j'ai déjà lu d'excellents ouvrages sur ce sujet, que je n'ai pas juste aimés mais adorés, composés de nouvelles, un format qui n'est pas celui que je préfère pourtant. Le problème est donc ailleurs si je n'ai pas accroché avec celui-ci et, ce n'est rien de le dire. Le problème n'est pas que c'est mauvais mais pour tout dire, sur plus de 80 textes, seulement 4 ou 5 ont vraiment éveillés mon intérêt. La plupart ne font qu'une page ou deux, et sont de simples descriptions, sans réel propos et ça, définitivement, ce n'est pas pour moi. Enfin, cerise sur le gâteau, je n'ai pas non plus aimé que le titre et l'auteur soient toujours placés à la fin de l'extrait (ou du poème, ou de la nouvelle...). J'aime bien savoir ce que je lis."
Et comment cela s'est-il fini ?
"Bref, je suis passée à côté mais je suis consciente que ce qui ne m'a pas plu peut en séduire d'autres. C'est d'ailleurs un ouvrage qui est très apprécié en général. En attendant, il m'aura au moins servi à étendre mon vocabulaire anglais."
http://booksaremywonderland.hautetfor...
February 8, 2024
My reading challenge for 2024 is to read this series of books within their season, pretty simple task as it is only 4 books…but with my memory the biggest reading challenge to ever be undertaken.
The first book is Winter, my favourite season, and this wonderful collection of essays, poems, diary entries and excerpts covers all my favourite parts of winter. From that crunch you get from walking in virgin snow, to the frosty covering of everything, to searching for wildlife during the time nature sleeps and witnessing those first signs of life as spring approaches. The range of writers was impressive, you get well known names from the past like Charlie Dickens and the great Rev Gilbert White, there are well known names from today like Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane, these were all very interesting pieces, of which quite a few I had read before, but for me it was those writers I hadn’t heard of that I enjoyed the most. Tiffany Francis had a really poetic piece about a forest claiming back the land that humans altered and then moved on. Elizabeth Guntrip writing about her illness and the effect of the cold on her body was well written, I can see she is somebody that would be easy to read. My favourite piece was by Anita Sethi writing as a child and the garden she planted with her mum in Manchester and the sadness of the world she lived in filled with racism and joy riders, that one bit of colour really stood out, powerful stuff. Most of these writers managed to cram so much in to the few pages allocated to them.
A wonderful collection and well edited so that there was no repetition or any dull moments. A good start to this years seasons.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
The first book is Winter, my favourite season, and this wonderful collection of essays, poems, diary entries and excerpts covers all my favourite parts of winter. From that crunch you get from walking in virgin snow, to the frosty covering of everything, to searching for wildlife during the time nature sleeps and witnessing those first signs of life as spring approaches. The range of writers was impressive, you get well known names from the past like Charlie Dickens and the great Rev Gilbert White, there are well known names from today like Kathleen Jamie and Robert Macfarlane, these were all very interesting pieces, of which quite a few I had read before, but for me it was those writers I hadn’t heard of that I enjoyed the most. Tiffany Francis had a really poetic piece about a forest claiming back the land that humans altered and then moved on. Elizabeth Guntrip writing about her illness and the effect of the cold on her body was well written, I can see she is somebody that would be easy to read. My favourite piece was by Anita Sethi writing as a child and the garden she planted with her mum in Manchester and the sadness of the world she lived in filled with racism and joy riders, that one bit of colour really stood out, powerful stuff. Most of these writers managed to cram so much in to the few pages allocated to them.
A wonderful collection and well edited so that there was no repetition or any dull moments. A good start to this years seasons.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
February 20, 2021
It's a pleasant enough collection: nothing outstanding if you have to squeeze it into a speed read like I did, just before said winter finally ended. But it would be a lovely reference book for dipping into at leisure with a cup of tea, across the span of December to February unhurried.
The formatting wasn't great - it very much annoyed me that the table of contents didn't refer to the extracts/poems by name, and there wasn't a great breadth contained within either. From the diversity of writers to the diversity of the landscapes written - it seemed like there was only small effort taken. Norfolk and Suffolk appear very frequently - nice for someone living there, dull for readers from other areas. It is a generally very middle class and white collection.
The extracts in particular suffered from being collected in convention with the worst stereotypes of nature writing: detatched yet solemenly romantic, misanthrophy and pastoral longing for 'the good old days' bubbling under fastidious narratives about the birds and flora of the land. It was also a shame that it didn't collect as much poetry to break the extracts up a bit, since they seemed to be more 'samey.'
Because of formatting/sameyness, I was only left with an impression by the extracts from Olaudah Equiano, Virginia Woolf, Anita Sethi - and, thanks to poor formatting, the poem that contrasted winter with Northern poverty that I couldn't remember the name or author of if you offered to pay me to.
The formatting wasn't great - it very much annoyed me that the table of contents didn't refer to the extracts/poems by name, and there wasn't a great breadth contained within either. From the diversity of writers to the diversity of the landscapes written - it seemed like there was only small effort taken. Norfolk and Suffolk appear very frequently - nice for someone living there, dull for readers from other areas. It is a generally very middle class and white collection.
The extracts in particular suffered from being collected in convention with the worst stereotypes of nature writing: detatched yet solemenly romantic, misanthrophy and pastoral longing for 'the good old days' bubbling under fastidious narratives about the birds and flora of the land. It was also a shame that it didn't collect as much poetry to break the extracts up a bit, since they seemed to be more 'samey.'
Because of formatting/sameyness, I was only left with an impression by the extracts from Olaudah Equiano, Virginia Woolf, Anita Sethi - and, thanks to poor formatting, the poem that contrasted winter with Northern poverty that I couldn't remember the name or author of if you offered to pay me to.
January 21, 2018
I think these Anthologies for the Changing Seasons are so wonderful to read. Melissa Harrison has dedicated her time to collecting the best writing about the English seasons from honoured writers. In Winter, you have an array of writers including: William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Robert Macfarlane, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, to name but a few. Each writer captures something different about the season, detailing what it represents to them, how it unfolds in different regions of the country and how it impacts the wildlife.
I always feel so inspired to write my own little pieces after reading the wonderful ones in these books. It's so interesting to see what winter means to someone else, to someone from centuries ago, to someone who lives on the opposite end of the country, and so on. I particularly liked this one for it's array of writers who I've grown to love. Harrison included one of my favourite Shakespearean sonnets, one of my favourite poems from Wordsworth, a beautiful snippet from Woolf's Orlando (which I really need to read now), and a moving piece from Edward Step's 1930 Nature Rambles: An Introduction to Country-lore. I'd definitely recommend reading these books; they're put together so beautifully (the images and layouts are gorgeous) and they are always introducing me to new authors.
I always feel so inspired to write my own little pieces after reading the wonderful ones in these books. It's so interesting to see what winter means to someone else, to someone from centuries ago, to someone who lives on the opposite end of the country, and so on. I particularly liked this one for it's array of writers who I've grown to love. Harrison included one of my favourite Shakespearean sonnets, one of my favourite poems from Wordsworth, a beautiful snippet from Woolf's Orlando (which I really need to read now), and a moving piece from Edward Step's 1930 Nature Rambles: An Introduction to Country-lore. I'd definitely recommend reading these books; they're put together so beautifully (the images and layouts are gorgeous) and they are always introducing me to new authors.
March 5, 2023
"There are moments of peace even in the darkest of times. When life is stripped to its purest core we find its resolve is strong. And when the world around me is so cold it nearly takes my breath away, when my feet feel they might just be snatched from beneath me, I will push on-in to the grass, towards the other side, and to my destination : to sit, and rest there a while, until time and nature have thawed my heart and fears.
Elizabeth Guntrip, 2016"
Winter : An antologhy for the changing seasons
Edited by Melissa Harrison
Un precioso recopilatorio de textos dedicados al invierno.
Abarcando casi 700 años, contiene poemas de Shakespeare, Stevenson, Hardy y relatos nuevos de Patrick Barkham, Satish Kumar y Anita Sethi, pasando por clásicos como Virginia Woolf o James Joyce.
Unidos por la fría belleza de la estación, la placidez de un paisaje adormecido, la libertad de la naturaleza para retomar sus ritmos pausados y la belleza de esa vida que sigue ahí, presente para las miradas atentas.
Un libro precioso que hemos disfrutado muchísimo con las chicas de las lecturas #readinenglish
#winter #changingseasons #melissaharrison winter #lecturasconjuntasraquellectora
Elizabeth Guntrip, 2016"
Winter : An antologhy for the changing seasons
Edited by Melissa Harrison
Un precioso recopilatorio de textos dedicados al invierno.
Abarcando casi 700 años, contiene poemas de Shakespeare, Stevenson, Hardy y relatos nuevos de Patrick Barkham, Satish Kumar y Anita Sethi, pasando por clásicos como Virginia Woolf o James Joyce.
Unidos por la fría belleza de la estación, la placidez de un paisaje adormecido, la libertad de la naturaleza para retomar sus ritmos pausados y la belleza de esa vida que sigue ahí, presente para las miradas atentas.
Un libro precioso que hemos disfrutado muchísimo con las chicas de las lecturas #readinenglish
#winter #changingseasons #melissaharrison winter #lecturasconjuntasraquellectora
June 13, 2017
This book was an unexpected joy. To be completely honest, I bought this book because of the beautiful cover, which isn't the soundest reason to read something, but I'm so glad that I did. It was interesting reading this as the year begins to edge into summer, rather than during the winter (as I intended when I bought this volume). There was more than one moment when I looked up from reading to be surprised to find that snow was not falling outside: that it was, in fact, June. I'm definitely going to be picking it up again when the year turns. Rarely have I read an anthology so well selected and ordered. Every piece of writing, whether poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction (mostly non-fiction - this is nature writing after all) fit perfectly into the whole, building on the pieces before it and preparing the way for the next. I can't wait to read the rest of the seasons (which I am ordering immediately).
February 28, 2023
"There's an art to the business of wintering. It's a time to revel in the muddier waters of human emotion and to hybrinate magnificently. It's not just the trees, shorn of flowers and leaves and berries, who turn inward. - Jini Ready
Structure of this follows the months of Winter. I wish I started reading in November and spread it out across the season. Instead of reading all at once at the end of February. Making a note on my Calendar to reread next winter.
I particularly enjoyed selection about Shetland's Up Helly Aa by Jon Dunn:
"This is our fire festival, our nod to our Scandinavian forebears. This is a bearded, chain mailed, ax wielding, defiant fuck you to winner's endless darkness.
The lights go out. "
Structure of this follows the months of Winter. I wish I started reading in November and spread it out across the season. Instead of reading all at once at the end of February. Making a note on my Calendar to reread next winter.
I particularly enjoyed selection about Shetland's Up Helly Aa by Jon Dunn:
"This is our fire festival, our nod to our Scandinavian forebears. This is a bearded, chain mailed, ax wielding, defiant fuck you to winner's endless darkness.
The lights go out. "
January 8, 2022
Quote:
“The hare had been here before me, and as I struggled to get up from yet another fall into the snow, I became aware of him sitting quietly watching me; his coat the colour of snow, his black-tipped ears and dark eyes following my movements. Had I not been following his tracks I would probably have missed him, his colouring the perfect disguise for the day. It is ironic perhaps that the snowy conditions that hide him most effectively are also those that betray his passing. The next flurry would hide his tracks and start to fill the bigger marks of my unsteady feet. I headed back down to the valley, leaving my mountain hare to his wintry home.”
Ann MacCarthy, 2016
“The hare had been here before me, and as I struggled to get up from yet another fall into the snow, I became aware of him sitting quietly watching me; his coat the colour of snow, his black-tipped ears and dark eyes following my movements. Had I not been following his tracks I would probably have missed him, his colouring the perfect disguise for the day. It is ironic perhaps that the snowy conditions that hide him most effectively are also those that betray his passing. The next flurry would hide his tracks and start to fill the bigger marks of my unsteady feet. I headed back down to the valley, leaving my mountain hare to his wintry home.”
Ann MacCarthy, 2016
March 5, 2023
This has been my bedside book for the last month; it’s been ideal for that purpose, being a mixture of prose and poetry, all short - fiction and non-fiction, classic and modern. I found ‘Autumn’ in the library, and loved it, so I asked for any of the other three as a Christmas gift from my niece. I’m hoping to get the other two, and my own copy of ‘Autumn’ as well.
Beautifully produced, and edited by Melissa Harrison, a ‘new’ favourite author for me, in conjunction with the Wildlife Trusts, so very dear to my heart, as I’ve been a supporter for many years.
Beautifully produced, and edited by Melissa Harrison, a ‘new’ favourite author for me, in conjunction with the Wildlife Trusts, so very dear to my heart, as I’ve been a supporter for many years.
March 1, 2021
I was given this Winter anthology as part of a book swap with my book club at Christmas. It is a fantastic collection, of mainly non fiction stories, poems and observations based around winter. Wonderfully descriptive and evocative, I have really enjoyed reading this book over the winter months. A beautiful little book, perfect to dip in and out of when you like. I have enjoyed it so much I have now purchased the Spring anthology.
February 28, 2021
A collection of essays, extracts, poetry and prose.
I love the way you are guided throughout the winter months. Starting at the first signs of frost, lengthening nights, until you arrive in February and winter draws to an end.
I've discovered Thomas Furley Forster and the Reverend Gilbert White.
I love the way you are guided throughout the winter months. Starting at the first signs of frost, lengthening nights, until you arrive in February and winter draws to an end.
I've discovered Thomas Furley Forster and the Reverend Gilbert White.
March 16, 2021
I have never enjoyed a winter so much. This book is full of nature writing that evokes the stark and atmospheric beauty of winter. I read a section every day and was always eager to get out and experience the winter landscape, whatever the weather. I have just bought her Spring anthology and am excited to start it.
January 23, 2020
What a wonderful anthology. This beautiful collection introduced me to some new writers. There was a real mixture of classic and modern writing to appeal to all. I am looking forward to reading the other seasons and was very happy to see them in my local library last week.
January 18, 2022
3.75 stars ☆☆☆
“We must not expect to find snowdrops in October or blackberries in spring. Everything has its season for display; and we cannot learn the story of the year if we read only eight or nine of its twelve chapters.”
- Edward Step
“We must not expect to find snowdrops in October or blackberries in spring. Everything has its season for display; and we cannot learn the story of the year if we read only eight or nine of its twelve chapters.”
- Edward Step
January 29, 2024
Probably more like 3.5. This one just didn’t grab me like the Autumn volume did. It’s no wonder. I am not Winter’s biggest fan. A highlight of the anthology was saved for last. Anita Sethi’s piece was pure beauty.
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