I've been thinking about casting on a second project and I think I've chosen one. Years ago (13 or so) I knit this hat for Justin. He wore it several times, but he was in college at the time, so the hat often ended up on the floor of his dorm room. He brought it home and said that he didn't know how, but the hat had gotten a few small holes in it. There were at least five or six holes and I felt like crying, so I picked up the stitches around the holes the best I could and then just put the hat into the freezer. I suspected the holes were from carpet beetles, and I hoped the freezer would kill them. They are probably dead after 13 years, but realistically, I think it would be easier to just knit a new hat and duplicate stitch the animals once again onto the new hat. It took me over four months to knit and stitch originally but it could be a Christmas present if I started the new one in the near future. I think I might have extra balls of the original yarn I used, but that will require digging into deep stash. I also have to find the patterns for the animals. I might try gathering the materials together in the next week or so, or ordering new yarn if that's what I need to do. I've got my fingers crossed that this actually works out.
MacLaverty writes with
restraint and precision. The prose is spare but thoughtful, and there’s
an understated elegance to the way he captures memory, regret, and the
strange intimacy of a shared life. The alternating perspectives between
Gerry and Stella work well, highlighting how two people can inhabit the
same experiences yet carry entirely different emotional truths. I
especially appreciated the exploration of faith, guilt, and aging. These
big themes are handled in a human, grounded way.
That said,
while I completely understood and could easily relate to feelings that
people engaged in a decades-long marriage might experience, that doesn't
easily translate to a book that people might enjoy reading. The novel’s
quiet realism too often tips into emotional monotony. The conflicts are
internal, the revelations subtle, and the forward momentum minimal. At
times, I found myself admiring the craft more than feeling compelled by
the story.
There’s no doubt that Midwinter Break is a
mature and carefully constructed novel. For readers who appreciate
introspective literary fiction and nuanced character studies, it will
likely resonate deeply. For me, though, the experience felt more
contemplative than captivating. Thoughtful and well-written, but not
quite moving enough to linger long after the final page. This was three stars for me.
During the winter, I worry about the birds, foxes, and deer that visit our yard on a regular basis. In Winter World, Bernd Heinrich explains that many of them have mechanisms and ways to survive so maybe I don't need to worry too
much. What could have been a straightforward natural history of how
animals survive the cold becomes, in Heinrich’s hands, something more
intimate: a meditation on adaptation, endurance, solitude, and awe.
Blending
memoir with scientific observation, Heinrich documents the winter lives
of creatures in and around his Maine woods, chickadees that can lower
their body temperature to survive brutal nights, frogs that freeze solid
and thaw in spring, insects that rely on antifreeze-like chemicals,
mammals that gamble on stored fat. His explanations are clear and often
fascinating, and he has a gift for translating complex biological
processes into language that feels accessible without being simplistic.
That
said, I had mixed and complicated feelings about some of the
experiments he describes. Several of them feel driven primarily by
personal curiosity rather than a clearly articulated research framework,
and there are instances where he captures wild animals to conduct
experiments that ultimately result in the animal’s death. While Heinrich
is transparent about what he’s doing, and while such practices may not
be unusual in certain scientific contexts, reading these passages was
unsettling. At times, the tone borders on casual in ways that made the
work seem more scientifically irresponsible than rigorously controlled.
The
book also straddles an interesting line between science and memoir. It
is undeniably grounded in biology, but it also contains plenty of
personal reflection and non-scientific assumptions about behavior,
motivation, and meaning in the natural world. For some readers, that
blend will be the book’s greatest strength; for others, it may blur the
boundaries between observation and interpretation a bit too freely.
Ultimately, Winter World
transforms the coldest season into one of quiet brilliance. Even with
my reservations, I finished the book more attentive to the frost on my
own windows, more curious about the birds at my feeder, and more aware
of the invisible dramas unfolding in the snow. It’s an absorbing,
thought-provoking read, one that inspires wonder, even as it invites
debate about the costs of curiosity. Three and a half stars rounded up.
What are you making and reading this first Wednesday in March?
