Winterlust
Finding Beauty in a Fierce Season BERND BRUNNER A fascinating and edifying compendium of fact and fiction that explores the marvels, terrors, and mythology of winter. Bernd Brunner’s Winterlust is a love letter to winter from his inner child, who still remembers the first time a snowflake melted on his palm. From the harsh realities of surviving the season to its unparalleled qualities and sensory experiences, Brunner traces winter as a phenomenon through the history of people’s relationship to this recurring time of year, doing so through authors and explorers, and native peoples and their adaptations to life in low temperatures and extreme conditions in all corners of the globe. Myths, legends, and festivals originating from the snow and the cold tie us back to when we had less data and more superstitions about this mysterious season. The author also approaches winter and its chronological effects through events around the world commemorating snow, ice, and cold, and through those marking the end of this time of year: signals that winter creates and maintains a sense of time for humankind, even today. Brunner pursues human attempts to survive, thrive in, and rationalize the season, tracking consequent historical and future consequences to the planet’s climate, and the tactile sensations and immediacy made possible by such extreme conditions. Indeed, the descriptions in Brunner’s book linger because of their tangibility, a physical sensory experience only available in the indifferent and extreme cold of wintertime. A snowflake dissolving on the tongue and a hot mug of tea—the crisp, painful cold and the sight of the bright, glittering reflection of thousands of crystals on a carpet of snow: these are the markers of winter, of the season Brunner holds so dear, and those that make the reader want to cherish this season, too. Reading Winterlust, winter takes shape in the form of snow, ice, and cold, but also from a human perspective, as a beautiful, unforgiving time of year: as one becoming all the more precious and ephemeral in our time of increasing climate change. Bernd Brunner divides his time between Istanbul and Berlin. He has written for Lapham’s Quarterly, the Paris Review Daily, among others, and is the author of numerous books, including Birdmania. Rights available: World English (excluding North America) 256 pages • full color photo section •Fall 2019 Greystone Books Ltd. 343 Railway Street, Suite 302, Vancouver, B.C., V6A 1A4 • Fall 2018 Rights • rights@greystonebooks.com • www.greystonebooks.com • Page 20 of 26