Five books for the approaching winter

Briefly: Wintering USA is TWO!! | This month’s Patreon includes a Sharon Blackie book club & a hangout with Leah Hazard - join now | My conversation with Lauren Ober on Instagram | Wintering @ The Shift Book Club (& win a proof of Enchantment!) | My autism resource is here.

Hello,

I thought I’d offer something a little different in this week’s newsletter - after all, we have just made the transition into the dark half of the year, following Samhain, or All Hallows, or the halfway point between the autum equinox and the winter solstice. We’re now in the territory I mapped in Wintering: a particular psychic location in which we’re concerned with a dearth of light and warmth, and whose business is scarcity and dying, as well as the gemination of the next life.

So, in that spirit, I thought I might recommend five new-ish books to read in readiness for the coming winter. All of them open up gentle, reflective, complex spaces in which to imagine your winter self. 

Marit Kapla, Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village

This extraordinary book captures the spirit of a remote village in the north of Sweden: earthy, humorous, moving, and always with one eye on the cold season. It’s composed entirely of verbatim interviews with the villagers, but it’s written in verse. If this sounds excessively cerebral, it’s nothing of the sort. In fact, the format allows the eye to skip over the words in a way that feels conversational and profoundly human. My description doesn’t nearly do it justice. 

Jason Reynolds (author) and Jason Griffin (illustrator), Oxygen Mask

In a world that’s burning, and flooding, and feeling short of breath, a young voice talks through his fears, and his connections. The whole thing is laid out like a scrap book, or a diary, or just one, long meandering thought. Don’t discount it because it’s YA - it’s an incredible, transcendent work of art. 

Eleanor Parker, Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year

Have we always seen the seasons in the same way? This is an exploration of the way the year was perceived in England a millennium ago, and winter is just the beginning. Eleanor Parker is one of my favourite historians - I love the way that she shares her sources, teasing out the limits of our understanding, and encouraging us to experience the poetry of Old English for ourselves. The result is an encounter with the vivid afterglow of minds long gone. 

Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These

Christmas approaches in a small Irish town in 1985. Bill Furlong and his wife Kathleen are weighing up their year - a good one, for the most part. But as Bill completes his final deliveries, he meets the sorry-looking young women at the local convent, and has to weigh up how much he’s willing to challenge the power and authority of the local Church to salve his own conscience. I’m not exactly the first to recommend this novel - it was on the Booker Prize shortlist - but I can’t resist telling you about it all the same. Elegant, lyrical, heartfelt and extremely short (see it as a counterbalance to 800-page Osebol), this is a parable for our times.

Sarah Thomas, The Raven’s Nest

A memoir of a love affair, an anthropology of an island nation, and a natural history of an unreal landscape, this gorgeous account of a few years in Iceland speaks of how we survive in cold, barren landscapes. I loved the way Thomas delves into the Icelandic language, and how it reveals a very particular - almost animistic - mindset. 

Note: At this moment in time, lots of small bookshops are struggling to stay open due to rising prices and lower footfall in the winter. If you can’t drop in personally, the links here go to bookshop.org, where you can select ‘choose a bookshop’ and nominate your local indie to get a share of the profits from your sale. 

Live dates & workshops

Bookshop event: Little Green Book Shop, Herne Bay, 18th November 2022, 18.00 - 19.30. As we settle into the dark half of the year, I’ll be in conversation about Wintering. Book here.

Online book club: Wintering is Sam Baker’s November pick for The Shift book club - and she’s offering a chance to win an early proof copy of Enchantment (complete with my syntactical hiccups that I’ve been editing out all week). More information here.

At the Rookery…

This afternoon is Creative Questions for our Wanderers tier, which is especially for writers and creatives - this is the only way I’m coaching at the moment, and I love it. It’s not too late to join in time for today’s session: take a look here.

Next Wednesday, the fabulous Leah Hazard is joining our monthly hangout, sharing her current cultural highlights, answering your questions, and hopefully giving us a few insights into her forthcoming book, Womb. 

The next True Stories Book Club pick will be Hagitude by Sharon Blackie, which I know many of you already love. I’ll be talking to Sharon on Saturday 19th November -  do join us live if you can. We’re already collecting your questions on the Rookery page.

The Rookery is a great place to spend time with your favourite writers. Join our wonderful, lively community here.

I’ll go back to reading wintery books now. Take care. 

Katherine x

Website | Patreon | Courses | Preorder: Enchantment US | UK link coming soon! | Buy: Wintering UK / US | Buy: The Electricity of Every Living Thing UK / US