Name: Winter
ISBN: 9780887849756

Adam Gopnik

Collects the thoughts and perspectives of artists, poets, composers, writers, explorers, and scientists on the season of winter, from reflections on snow and God to the future of northern culture.

Five Windows on the Season

Winter

The 2011 CBC Massey Lectures celebrates fifty years with bestselling author, essayist, cultural observer, and famed New Yorker contributor Adam Gopnik, whose subject is winter -- the season, the space, the cycle. Gopnik takes us on an intimate tour of the artists, poets, composers, writers, explorers, scientists, and thinkers, who helped shape a new and modern idea of winter. Here we learn how a poem by William Cowper heralds the arrival of the middle class; how snow science leads to existential questions of God and our place in the world; how the race to the poles marks the human drive to imprint meaning on a blank space. Gopnik’s kaleidoscopic work ends in the present day, when he traverses the underground city in Montreal, pondering the future of Northern culture. A stunningly beautiful meditation buoyed by Gopnik’s trademark gentle wit, Winter is at once an enchanting homage to an idea of a season and a captivating journey through the modern imagination. This deluxe 50th anniversary edition includes full-colour images printed on two 8-page inserts.

sometimes a book finds you at the exact right time and not only the reading experience, but also parts of your life, will be elevated by this unexpected synergy. gopnik’s winter was such an experience for me. i initially downloaded it because i got intrigued by the sports quote and the chapter about hockey was as enjoyable as i’d hoped it’d be! but the book also got me hooked on the stories about places far colder than the one i live in, about arctic explorers, about poets and painters beautiful and tragic connections to winter. i learned a lot from reading the essays and it makes you want to look up the people who get mentioned. at times, i found the tone and prose a bit difficult to immerse myself into, but i’m not sure if it was because of my terrible attention span or because the oral origins that occasionally didn’t translated that well. 

i read the five essays over six days in a beautiful cottage on the mountains. some of it i read sitting on the balcony, wrapped in my sister’s hoody and two sets of blankets. when i’d look up from the book i’d see the mountain slowly turning into the pale blue of the sky as the sun disappeared. it snowed for two days, the fog over the frozen lake so heavy that nothing but blurriness marked the horizon in the distance. my mind got submerged into thoughts about winter and, stomping through the fresh, crisp snow, i could submerge my body into winter too.

i don’t live in a very cold city, but while reading this book i could understand this life. 

lara

sometimes a book finds you at the exact right time and not only the reading experience, but also parts of your life, will be elevated by this unexpected synergy. gopnik’s winter was such an experience for me. i initially downloaded it because i got intrigued by the sports quote and the chapter about hockey was as enjoyable as i’d hoped it’d be! but the book also got me hooked on the stories about places far colder than the one i live in, about arctic explorers, about poets and painters beautiful and tragic connections to winter. i learned a lot from reading the essays and it makes you want to look up the people who get mentioned. at times, i found the tone and prose a bit difficult to immerse myself into, but i’m not sure if it was because of my terrible attention span or because the oral origins that occasionally didn’t translated that well. 

i read the five essays over six days in a beautiful cottage on the mountains. some of it i read sitting on the balcony, wrapped in my sister’s hoody and two sets of blankets. when i’d look up from the book i’d see the mountain slowly turning into the pale blue of the sky as the sun disappeared. it snowed for two days, the fog over the frozen lake so heavy that nothing but blurriness marked the horizon in the distance. my mind got submerged into thoughts about winter and, stomping through the fresh, crisp snow, i could submerge my body into winter too.

i don’t live in a very cold city, but while reading this book i could understand this life. 

Winter Five Windows on the Season