A very important read for everyone during the wintering of a year that 2020 has become. Definitely one of the most entrancing self-help books I’ve read in a long while. May’s personal narrative illuminating her hardest and darkest of times was beautifully written, almost in a poetic form. Keep this book close as the winter season approaches; it’ll help shine a dim, healing light through the darkness.

I love love loved this book! I had a winter a couple of years ago-my brother died at 40 and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. There was a certain point when I was ready to read for comfort and for understanding, and developed a list of "grief" books that I give when I don't know what to say beyond "I'm here, I'm here." I now think of that list as "Wintering" books, and put Katherine May's book at the top of the list. May's premise, that we all experience winters and don't have control over when they come, resonated loudly, as did the idea that once one survives a winter, it is one's responsibility to be there to pay it forward in someone else's winter. I appreciated the idea of slowing down, of changing habits and traditions, of caring for your soul and accepting the time it will take to heal.

Covid has been a kind of a winter-a forced slowing down and drawing in while simultaneously reaching out, making Wintering a perfect book to read now, and to know about when your winter arrives.

I reviewed this for AARP and absolutely loved it. Sorry, no link, yet. I found this book profound, moving, and gorgeously written.

This is my second book by Katherine May and I love her writing! She writes with spare lyricism as she pursues both internal and external journeys using the framework of the winter season. Her words find a home for anyone feeling like the world is too much and is in need of a retreat to take a breath and find their feet again. Highly recommended!

This book defies easy categorization. It is part memoir, part literary survey, part self-help, part meditation on our culture. I appreciated the author's moments of wry, sardonic humor amidst her journey through difficult times. This book is very much suited to our current moment, where we could all use a bit of a break from the constant barrage of anxiety-inducing concerns.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for a digital ARC for the purpose of an unbiased review.

While chronicling Oct-March, this is also about the metaphorical winter that sometimes blights our lives; the themes of isolation and slowing down, resting, recuperating, maybe even convalescing are also, unfortunately, completely timely for summering during a pandemic.

This book came to me at a serendipitous time. Quarantined at home during the first wave of COVID-19 in the last months of Winter, feeling very uncertain, worried, and tired. It was the balm I needed to soothe all of that uncertainty.

May writes eloquently about the ingrained need in humans to “winter” or rejuvenate. She talks about the northern European countries where people retreat to their homes and life slows down when Winter comes, and how that time is used to care for yourself, both mentally and physically. She shares her own retreat into “wintering” as illness hits first her husband, then herself, causing her to dramatically change her way of life.

There is lots of reflection here, and it must be said, some preaching from a position of privilege. Not everyone is in a position where they can stop working and retreat into their home to “winter,” but May writes about the concept in a way that “wintering” becomes less of physical thing and much more of a mental process, this making it more accessible. Her prose is lovely, comforting, and timely.

This will make an excellent book club pick.

Very timely. The writing is absolutely lovely. I’m sure this will be popular with our nature writing lovers, and our book group. Highly recommend.