Reading Wintering by Katherine May felt like a wintering in itself: a slow and quiet unravelling of ideas, personal truths, and gentle provocations about how we move through difficult seasons.

May’s reflections are rooted in her own experiences, many of which I could not relate to, but this deeply personal sharing of her experience gave the book a sense of authenticity. There were moments when the narrative felt slow and reluctant to give up details, moving between personal and universal experiences of winter and wintering.

“In the depths of our winters, we are all wolfish: we want in the archaic sense of the word, as if we are lacking something and need to absorb it in order to be whole again. These wants are often astonishingly inaccurate: drugs and alcohol that poison instead of reintegrate; relationships with people who do not make us feel safe or loved; objects that we do not need and cannot afford…”

What stayed with me most is May’s central idea: wintering is a natural human process. Just as in the natural world, where dormancy is a matter of survival rather than failure, we move through our own cycles of retreat. Illness, exhaustion, grief, disappointment, abrupt change: these moments mark the winters in our lives. Modern culture is not especially kind to these pauses. We are encouraged to push through, to stay productive, to keep blooming even when everything in us is going bare.

May argues that many people have forgotten, or never learned in the first place, how to winter. Nature, however, offers a clear reminder that these quiet seasons are not only inevitable but essential. Her writing invites a gentler stance: if we can acknowledge our personal winters as they arrive, we might learn to weather them with more compassion and grace.

“In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalise our comfort and security somehow, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life.”

For me, that was the valuable heart of the book. Not a set of answers, but a reframing. A reminder that retreat is not failure; it is part of the rhythm of being alive. And that on the other side of winter, something tender and new is always preparing to emerge.

Thank you for visiting the Wild Library blog! Have you read Wintering? Let me know what you thought in the comments. You might also enjoy Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie and Educated by Tara Westover.

Happy reading,

Chantelle