I absolutely adored this book. It's beautifully written & part memoir which covers health, relationships, life, finances etc. as well as offering advice to retreat, care and repair yourself. Would recommend.

Such an elegant exploration of the concept of personal winters, so many passages hit squarely home with me that my copy is packed full of bookmarks. I loved the deeply personal aspects as it felt like you’re being taken into Katherine May’s confidence, whilst the wisdom learnt from the other stories dispersed throughout gave a love,y depth to the experience. Above all, I loved the sense of optimism balanced by acceptance that May cultivates, and encourages readers to: that we all have winters, but they can be endured with a sense of peace and calm until the warmth returns. A book to return to every time Winter comes knocking.

Thank you so much for this book.
This is so wonderfully written it made me feel good.
My husband read it as well and we are going to buy it so we have a proper copy to keep.

In hindsight, Wintering was the perfect book to read in 2020. Like most of the world, I have spent months at home and wintering was a beautiful inspiration. It was richly evocative, allowing me to interpret my least favorite season through someone else. As an Australian living in Europe, I have always dreaded the season. I really enjoyed reading about Katherine May's adventures through Iceland and to Stonehenge, especially now that I haven't travelled very far for an incredibly long time. It was the perfect book for 2020, allowing me to view life in a different manner and to appreciate the joys of living a slower and more fulfilling life.

Many thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing and Katherine May. What a lovely book. As a sufferer of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) for many years, I could really relate to the rollercoaster emotional ride of winter that Katherine describes. Unfortunately as a sufferer of Raynaud's syndrome as well, I could not ever entertain the cold water swimming, even though I've heard such great things about how it helps so much with both mental and physical health, but that aside this is a wonderful book to reread and treasure, I loved it.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Wintering but I love reflective memoirs and this seemed to combine a an appreciation of the most brutal season nature offers us with a reflective thoughtful attitude towards winter. The author's journey is a personal one. Like so many, when her life begins to unravel she eventually opts to give herself time out and winterise herself while her mind and body recovers. There are some beautiful reflections on the importance of slowing down, stopping and allowing yourself to heal. This retreat from the world and look at other countries and cultures who also do this was the perfect January read.

“The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women —-
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanish walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.

Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.”
Extracted from Wintering by Sylvia Plath

This was a perfect read for the last weeks of the year. May describes ‘wintering’ as a withdrawal, a regeneration required for you at certain times. Not just to do with the season, Winter, but closely linked.

I really enjoyed reading this, a collection of essays almost, as she explores what she needs and talks to other people she knows who have gone through wintering. Wintering is a bit like a depressive state, but more than that, it’s a renewal. I think for me, wintering is an active period of focussed meditation.
We journey together in this, through cold water deep sea swimming, saunas, and how other countries deal with the extreme cold. She visits Iceland and Finland and Tromso in Norway, and this for me was a lovely postcard from places I have been too (not Iceland, but Finland and Tromso).

My description feels like it’s a bleak book, and in some ways it is - she talks of being ill, of being unable to function in her job and being uncertain about what the future holds. May describes her depression and her medication, and how this research helps her work through what she needs to do, for herself, to regenerate and renew. This is the optimistic part - I don’t fancy popping in the sea in a swimsuit in December, but it works for her and it’s so well written that you can almost feel the waves bobbing you about, and the shock of the cold as it hits your chest.

“Wintering” by Syliva Plath is mentioned in this book, and I’ve included an excerpt at the beginning of this review. We studied it in sixth form, as most people my age did, I think. I can’t remember this poem though and I wonder if we just didn't get to it. She talks about this with the bees in the winter, and how a few different species prepare.

I finished this book feeling optimistic, thankful to May for sharing her thoughts and her journey, and interested in how my own wintering would manifest. Definitely with a book or two, a cat on my lap and sleeping longer, going to bed earlier than in the summer. I would add in running as my constant - perhaps with more care in the ice and frost, but there’s something magic in seeing the frozen spiderwebs and frosty fields.

Unfortunately, I have found this book very slow, I did get little spurts to sit down and read but then it just didn't seem to draw me in. I have a little more to read but have currently set it aside as I know I have books I will read through quicker. On saying that it could just be when I am reading it, as often I think their is a certain time for a certain book. They certainly had to deal with a lot over a period of time. I will finish it but maybe not for now.

This was beautiful. I devoured it in an hour on a sun lounger in Tenerife, ironically. Beautiful, lyrical, potent and wonderful.

A fascinating book I was lucky enough to receive as an ARC.
Katherine May takes a look at how to embrace, rather than endure, the cold and dark parts of the lives we experience. In accepting ourselves as we are and doing the best we can do at any moment rings true to many situations in ones own life (and has never been more relevant than during a pandemic). She discusses reaching out to the seasons and embracing things we are programmed to shun from or ignore - our spiritual and natural connections and the effect on our mental health and wellbeing.
It is beautifully written, honest and expressive and is a book to embrace and be comforted by.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books

This is a very beautiful book but very hard to describe or review really. It’s not quite essays, it’s not quite a memoir. It’s about winter, hunkering down, facing up to life, mental health, and many many other things. Ms May says -

"Winter is a quiet house in lamplight, stepping into the garden to see bright stars on a clear night, the roar of the wood burning stove, and the accompanying smell of charred wood. It is warming the teapot and making cups of bitter cocoa; it is stews magicked from bones with dumplings floating like clouds."

"The sun is low, making gold streaks in the desiccated grasses that line my path. I am alert to birds, to the sudden bustle of movement in the bare red brambles."

The language is poetic but the topics are diverse and deep - like the snow. There was something very soothing about reading this book during lockdown. It felt like a friend reassuring me that Spring will come and life will continue. Definitely pick this up if you’re looking for something a bit different to lose yourself in as you curl up on the sofa with a hot drink. Even better if it’s raining outside.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

A beautifully written book, which seems to say something relevant on every page. This is just the sort of book to give as a present to a thoughtful friend, and I certainly will be re-reading this many times.

I rated this book two stars - this book wasn’t for me.
I loved the concept of this book and really liked Katherine May’s other book, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, however this book just didn’t work for me. I felt, as a reader, that this story would have better fit the format of a magazine or news article, rather than a book.
I read 30% and struggled to connect with it in the way I had hoped to. At the section in which Katherine visits Iceland, I really struggled with the book. As somebody who has lived in Iceland, there were just too many inaccuracies.
These were “The Golden Triangle” which is the biggest tourist attraction in Iceland and is called “The Golden Circle”.
She said that the tap water was only drinkable after being placed in the fridge. This simply is not true unless you have the hot water tap on, in which case the water will smell sulphuric. Nobody drinks from the hot water tap. The cold water tap is very lovely to drink from and it’s some of the freshest water you'll taste in your life. I found both of these inaccuracies very frustrating to read.
Side note: I also found it just weird that she described the bodies she seen in the shower room as “Northern bodies”... I’m hoping this was a typo of some kind as her descriptions sound like bodies of human beings who live all over the world.
May says some of these (false) things with such conviction that I then struggled to accept the validity of anything she later said as she had lost credibility to me. I know this is an advanced readers copy, but I do feel that even this copy needs to be fact checked before it’s sent out into the world, to save face if nothing else.

Wintering, How I learned to flourish when life became frozen, is a book that I read a little while ago, and only now, whilst writing the review in this time of Coronavirus, do I realise how needed this book is.

It's about accepting that at times you need to withdraw, and that you can't do everything with enthusiasm and bounce.  That at times you need to take time for you.

Katherine May discovers Wintering when she is ill, her husband is seriously ill, and when both of them are getting better, her son hates school, and she decides to home school him.

It was an enjoyable read when I was reading it just in the winter, and thinking about the idea of having time to recuperate, and not be angry at yourself for not being able to do everything.

And then Coronavirus has happened, and the world is mostly in lock down.  

This book looks at going into wintering, but also coming out of it.  There is hope, and there is certainty that things will get better.

Wintering was published on 6th February 2020 and is available on  Amazon  and  Waterstones , and through your local bookshop!

You can following Katherine May on  Twitter  and through her  website .

If you're interested in self help books, then here's some others that I've reviewed:

The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

 An Edited Life  by Anna Newton

 Hinch Yourself Happy  by Mrs Hinch

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin Random House, Ebury Publishing (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!

I absolutely loved this wonderful book. I related to the feelings the writer described and it certainly made me think more philosophically about the moments we all experience in the dark days. Fascinating accounts of how other cultures live, and deal with the cold and the dark months. A beautifully written memoir that gives sound advice on how to endure our winterings, and even, renew and recharge, to emerge a better version of the self.

This book is part memoir and part exploration of what it is for people and lands to experience winter, that season of shutdown when we stop growing and hunker down waiting for the return of the sun. May says that, rather than winter being a final shutdown, ‘we live through a thousand winters in our lives – some big, some small’. We may experience winter as grief or a period of poor mental or physical health. Wintering, she says, ‘is the active acceptance of sadness’. She advocates not just taking care of ourselves in these times, but leaning into the cold to find what it has to offer. As well as sharing her own experiences, May interviews others who have experienced their own winters and provides insights into how other cultures deal with periods of cold and dark. The writing is beautiful and I found the book quietly uplifting. ‘Wintering’ is a perfect read for what we are living through now, for it offers gentle hope for ‘a time after the aftermath’: ‘We have seasons when we flourish, and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.’

A beautifully written, wise meditation on the healing power of dark winter nights. Will give you a new appreciation of not just winter but all the seasons.

Wintering is a delightful book that draws parallels with the way the natural world adapts to survive (and even thrive in) winter and the invariable "winters" that human beings go through in life "where you fall through the cracks for a while, and spend a season out in the cold".

In a mix of self-help, memoir and nature writing, Katherine May writes perceptively and quite beautifully about the cyclic nature of life, both in the physical world through the seasons and in our emotional landscape. Far from being bleak and depressing, winter can be a time of renewal and growth. May shares insights from her own "wintering" as well as interviews with other people who have endured extreme cold as well as extreme personal hardships.

It's a book about slowing down, surrendering, learning to be kind to yourself and embrace change, and accepting that life goes through seasons. As May writes, "once we stop wishing it were summer, winter can be a glorious season". And most importantly, like all winters, whether it be the actual season or the hard time you're experiencing, it won't last forever. The season will turn, and you will get through it. It will not always be winter. Spring will come again.

It's the perfect read for any time of year but particularly pertinent in autumn when the nights are getting darker and colder!

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

Katherine May is a British author who has written books such as The Whitstable High Tide Swimming Club and The Electricity of Every Living Thing. I’ve never read any of her books before so Wintering was my introduction.

Wintering is about not only the season but also about when things get emotionally and mentally too much. When we struggle with day to day life and how we work out what we need to do to get through a dark patch. I related it to my depression quite strongly.

I never really considered the comparison of depression with winter. I’ve heard about the black dog or black clouds, but an entire season? One that has the “most wonderful time of the year” in it? It had never crossed my mind. I also never expected a book about that to be so beautiful, because it truly is. May takes you through her journey of dealing with her own wintering and what she tries and does to pull herself out of it. The imagery and writing is superb and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

Like I said above, I’ve never read any books by May before but I will definitely be reading more. Her writing is a joy to read and I strongly recommend her books to everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rider for my copy of the book to review.

I really enjoyed this book. It's part essay, part memoir and they are all centred around winter topics and related activity and it's just so nicely done. My favourite essays were Epiphany and Darkness I felt her ability to link the things she was going through to winter was incredibly seamless in these two essays.
My issue with this book is sometimes it feels like a history lesson, so sometimes it feels like part essay, part memoir, part historical fiction. I understood why it was being done but I wasn't interested in the historical facts of some of the things (i.e wolves) and even some of the topics I was interested in it really felt too much like it had been lifted out of a history book and dumped into the pages. It would have been nicer if the lessons (if they had to be in there) blended in nicely with the personal topic being spoken about.
Regardless, I found an author who I am intrigued by and I'm going to check out her backlist!