Winterlust
Finding Beauty in the Fiercest Season
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“Mr. Brunner’s winning book is a reassuring, nostalgic reminder that winter is the season of both play and regeneration.”—Wall Street Journal
In Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on frozen terrain, where famous explorers perish. Icicles reach deep underwater, then explode. Rooms warmed by crackling fires fill with scents of cinnamon, cloves, and pine. Skis carve into powdery slopes, and iceboats traverse glacial lakes.
This lovingly illustrated meditation on winter entwines the spectacular with the everyday, expertly capturing the essence of a beloved yet dangerous season, which is all the more precious in an era of climate change
“Brunner masterfully does in words what resilient and adventurous people have done in their lives for centuries; he finds beauty in blizzards and ice and the crystallized enchantment of snow.”
—Dan Egan, Pulitzer finalist and author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
On bitterly cold days, all we want to do is curl up with a good book. And Winterlust—an artful reflection on the beauty of ice, snow, and frigid weather—is the perfect selection. Bernd Brunner is an essayist, thinker, and philosopher whose genius is his specificity: In words and illustrations, he maps out many reasons to appreciate the most frigid season by describing in detail how humans have thrived in subzero temperatures. Brunner’s examples are delightfully varied, from the 17th-century invention of french fries (in Flanders, to replace icebound fish) to the Group of Seven’s glorious canvases of snowbound Canada. This book will forever change how you think of winter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this thoughtful and meditative book on winter, essayist Brunner opts not to bemoan the season's faults, but to find reasons to sing its praises. In direct and accessible prose, he introduces the titular notion, an admirable variation on wanderlust, zeroing in on "the particular enchantments of this time of year." He celebrates the magic of snowfall, romantically evoking shared childhood experiences of snowball fights or lying on the ground making snow angels "as we gaze up into the sky." Brunner encourages readers to willingly embrace winter as an antidote to increasingly hurried and hectic lifestyles. Looking to Scandinavia, he touches on the popular if somewhat amorphous concept of hygge, a cultural ideal that has become the "new magic word" for many non-Scandinavians for its associations with "warmth and contentment," as often created through such elements as a crackling fire, fluffy pillows, and warm blankets all ways of setting a mood to offset the ice and snow outside. Another notable chapter deals with how such winter sports as skiing, tobogganing, sledding, and curling provide people with reasons to remain and to find enjoyment outdoors. With this calm meditation, Brunner offers readers pining for summer something to look forward to instead.
