Join us for lively discussions about thought-provoking books. Register online or by calling any library, then visit the library hosting this event to pick up your copy of the book.
After registering, pick up your copy of the book at Alice Turner Library.
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Katherine May
This is an intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down. Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a breakup, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected.
For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology and the natural world, May's story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing Arctic seas. Ultimately, Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times.
May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.
The Alice Turner Library replaced the smaller Sutherland Branch in December 1998. It was named after Alice Turner McFarland who was a library employee for 37 years and Saskatoon Public Library's chief librarian from 1981 to 1989. The first library in Canada to be built to the standards of C-2000 construction, Canada's environmental building code, the Alice Turner Library was expanded to double its original size in 2013.
