Natural light
  • News and Blog

Review:  Winter

22/10/2016

0 Comments

 

​Edited by Melissa Harrison

PictureWhooper swans in winter photo: Laurence Rose
Winter has arrived – not only the wheezing flurries of redwing but also the final volume in the seasonal quartet of anthologies edited by Melissa Harrison.  I reviewed the first in my blog The Long Spring, and I am pleased to see that the pattern and standards set by Spring have been maintained through the series.

​So some key points bear repeating:  I praised Harrison’s imaginative commissioning of new works and choice of previously published pieces to accompany them; and I applauded the gender balance in the choice of authors.  And the “high number of specially-written pieces including from several newish and/or youngish writers” happily applies to Winter, as it has the whole series.  

Picture

Unlike spring, except perhaps in the Highlands, winter rarely arrives with any fanfare.  Most symbols of winter are really signs of autumn – fieldfares and geese from the north, frost-sugared (to cite Deakin) rose-hips.  Opening Spring, I feared – without foundation as it turned out – that the season might prove too burdened with in-built clichés to sustain interest.  With Winter, Melissa and her contributors have again swerved wide of the obvious.  Snow takes its proper place, as a merely occasional feature of the season, many authors choosing to tackle fog instead. Christmas is a brief presence, as Christmas should be, and the myth of dormancy is largely replaced by celebrations of life showing through the cold.

Credit must go to the Wildlife Trusts, on whose behalf the series is published.  It would have been easy, lazy and commercially safe to produce yet another set of romantic, idyllic and ubiquitous favourites, but these books are for life, not just for Christmas.


​​Winter, edited by Melissa Harrison, published by Elliott & Thompson 20th October 2016.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Welcome

    to 
    NATURAL LIGHT
    a site devoted to nature, and artists who are 
    inspired by it

    editor Laurence Rose

    Follow us on 
    Facebook and Twitter
    Email us

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @Naturemusicpoet

    Archives

    October 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    October 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Australia
    BBC Proms
    Biodiversity
    Birds
    Campaigns
    Cheltenham Festival
    Conversations
    Endangered Species
    Environment
    Fenland
    Festivals
    Flamenco
    Hear And Now
    Iceland
    Landscape
    Literature
    Moth
    Music
    Norfolk Festival Of Nature
    Olivier Messiaen
    Peter Sculthorpe
    Poetry
    Re:Tweet Of The Day
    RSPB
    Sibelius
    Soundscape
    Spain
    Ted Hughes
    The Long Spring
    Uplands
    Wetlands
    Words
    WW1

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.