Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May was recommended by some well-read and well respected people, so perhaps my expectations were a bit too high. Still, I love the premise, which is about enduring difficult times, even leaning into them, moving through them, and eventually coming back to the light. So much of grief, sorrow, and depression is about stopping it, fixing it, and getting over it. This book is really the antithesis of that, which I find intriguing.

The intro is quite gripping, and this is where the strength of the book lies–when May is sharing her own personal story and experiences. However, there were also so many questions left unanswered. Like, did her husband’s health fully return? Why did she dislike her job? How did her husband and child feel about the author’s “wintering”? How did it impact her closest relationships?

There is also a trend in this kind of journalistic genre, where the author flip flops back and forth between personal writing and inquiry and an informative, lecture style. I am fully engaged by the personal story, but the lecture is always less interesting. First of all, while reading these sections, I often have an overwhelming reaction of “I already know this already.” It seems as though the insights in the lecture are not very insightful after all. Secondly, the transitions between the sections often seem awkward or unconvincing. Lastly, the lectures often feel forced. I can imaging an editor insisting that the author make the reader “eat their vegetables,” instead of just eating the cheesecake (cheesecake being the insights and personal journey).

There were even moments that rang false within the more journalistic sections. The section on wolves seemed particularly fraught. She claims that wolves don’t kill people. (They do.) That they kill more than they need and that’s reasonable. (How is that more reasonable than wasteful? murderous?). Finally, she claims that wolves are irrationally trapped, poisoned, shot, *beaten*, and killed, and that’s when I knew she was going a little overboard. I just highly doubt that these wild animals are tortured (beaten), though I’m not disputing that they are killed regularly by people. Also, I wanted to hear more about the bees.

Despite my complaints, this is a good book worth reading. I myself love restful times for quiet, recovery, reading, and introspection, and this book is really a celebration of that. While how the depression (she avoids this word) started is very developed, I would have loved to see that same development in the middle and then again at the end of her wintering. As I write in the beginning, this is a novel approach to sorrow and difficult times, and I think it’s a healthy approach, one that would be/will be helpful for me to return to in my own difficult times.