All posts tagged: winter

KATHERINE MAY’S NYT BESTSELLER: WINTERING & HOW IT RELATES TO A PERIOD OF TIME IN MY LIFE

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By Leslie Lindsay How does one care for and repair ourselves when we find ourselves slipping through the cracks? ~NONFICTION SPOTLIGHT|ALWAYS WITH BOOK~ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A meditation in what it means to winter, this intimate, part-memoir, part exploration, part essay, WINTERING by Katherine May (Riverhead, November 2020) explores all the ways winter is a lesson in self-care, healing, and rejuvenation. I once believed I could live in the northern climate of Minnesota. My mother scoffed, “It’s one of the coldest places we have in the U.S. Why would you want to go there?”  Simple: I had a job at the Mayo Clinic. I also wanted to get away from my wildly unstable, mentally ill mother. Still, her warning, her motherly instinct to shelter me from the harsh realities of a 6-8 month long winter, was somewhat…comforting. As children had been doing for eons, I defied her. I moved to Minnesota. Encapsulated in the snowy drifts and what I am sure was my first real blizzard, I hunkered down. I sat in the bay …

IF THE HOUSE…an arresting collection of poetry that begs the questions of obsessions, motifs, memories, flaws, and so much more–MOLLY SPENCER ON this plus how poems ‘talk’ to each other

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By Leslie Lindsay  IF THE HOUSE…a lyrical and emotive collection of poetry about the most basic structures of creation and recreation. ~WRITERS INTERVIEWING WRITERS|ALWAYS WITH A BOOK~ POETRY FRIDAY Well-known spaces of homes are examined with lush and precise prose in IF THE HOUSE by Molly Spencer (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), and being a ‘house person,’ I found myself completely absorbed. Here, we navigate the experiences of land and home, person and family, the cycles of nature, as well as ordinary and extravagant things–a kitchen table, a memory, the sky. It’s complex, it’s metaphorical, it’s all things good poetry should be. And like all good poetry, it is best savored and read aloud, and revisited–like an old homestead–often. Molly Spencer’s poetry has appeared in various well-known and recognized literary journals. She is a poetry editor for Rumpus and this collection won the 2019 Brittingham Prize in Poetry. Please join me in welcoming the lovely and talented Molly Spencer back to the author interview series. Leslie Lindsay: Molly, welcome back. I so loved IF THE HOUSE and HINGE (see …

Jennifer Chiaverini talks about her new book, THE CHRISTMAS BOOK, how quilting binds friendships and community, her next book about Mrs. Lincoln’s dressmakers, and so much more in this delightful winter read

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By Leslie Lindsay  New to the Elm Creek Quilts series from bestselling author of THE QUILTER’S APPRENTICE, MRS. LINCOLN’S DRESSMAKER, and RESISTANCE WOMEN comes this warm story brimming with nostalgia. On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of THE QUIILTER’S APPRENTICE, the novel that launched the Elm Creek Quilts series in 1999, comes an update on the quilters we’ve come to know and love. THE CHRISTMAS BOUTIQUE by Jennifer Chiaverini(William Morrow, Oct 1 2019) is a heartwarming tale steeped in nostalgia, old friendships and new. And I completely have a cover crush—you, too?! It’s a snowy day in mid-December when we awake and begin the day with Sylvia, master quilter, and recently remarried…but there’s been a blizzard and the temperatures have plunged…water pipes at the local church have burst. The wooden floor at the community hall is warped and ruined and those plans for the Christmas Boutique—an annual sale of baked goods and handcrafted items to benefit the county food bank—is thwarted. Sylvia offers to host the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral estate and also the …

Small towns, changing seasons, finding oneself, going back yet moving forward–Susan Bernhard discovers this & more in her debut WINTER LOON

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By Leslie Lindsay  A coming-of-age tale of one young man’s family tragedy about resilience, family secrets, dysfunction, and forging a new path.  WINTER LOON is a beautiful as it is stark. Debut novelist Susan Bernhard turns a graceful hand to an emotionally harrowing and highly dysfunctional family using the weather and the natural world as a backdrop. Through the retrospective lens of Wes Ballot, we follow along as his childhood comes to a dreadful end when his mother is drowned in an icy Minnesota lake. Wes is left with his drifter father, who, for the moment isn’t really around. At 15, Wes can’t be left alone in the family’s abandoned cabin in the woods, and so he is shipped off to live with his maternal grandparents in Montana, who aren’t too thrilled he’s there. Grandparents Ruby and Gip have remained embittered and cold to one another–and the world–what’s worse, Wes is forced to live in his mother’s old bedroom, still decorated as if she were 15 and living at home. But she’s dead and Wes misses his …

Inspired by Agatha Christie, Shari Lapena takes us to a secluded hotel in the Catskills and tosses in a murder or two in AN UNWANTED GUEST

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By Leslie Lindsay Pure WOW in this wickedly good twisted tale of isolation, torturous tension, smart and oh-so-good thriller from bestselling author Shari Lapena. She’s here chatting about writing herself into corners, how this is a ‘puzzle mystery,’ and she doesn’t always know the answers, plus her writing advice, being disciplined and so much more.  In 2016 when THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR came out, I was swept away. And then Lapena gave me more chills with A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE (2017) and this book, this one–AN UNWANTED GUEST (Penguin/Viking, August 14 2018) totally knocked it out of the park. This time, Lapena takes us to a small luxury hotel nestled in the Catskills Mountains with a cast of characters who don’t know one another. Soon, everyone becomes isolated from the outside world as a winter storm rips through the area leaving the inn without power. There is no escape. No Wi-Fi, no phone service, and plenty of tension. Oh, and a killer at large. At least underfoot. Maybe. Probably. What would explain the death …