Winter

Longing. The second novel in the seasons series by Ali Smith is titled, Winter. Patient readers will meander along with Smith in the bleakness of the season with a cast of characters who are somewhat unmoored and be rewarded with some beautifully crafted prose. My patience was waning until page 215 where Smith describes how Arthur has had enough of Christmas and now longs for winter itself. Here's the single sentence that gave me the prose payoff for my patience: "He wants real winter where words are sheathed in snow, trees emphatic with its white, their bareness shining and enhanced because of it, the ground underfoot snow-covered as if with frozen feathers or shredded cloud but streaked with gold through the trees from low winter sun, and at the end of the barely discernable track, along the dip in the snow that indicates a muffled path between the trees, the view and the woods opening to a light that's itself untrodden, never before blemished, wide like an expanse of snow-sea, above it more snow promised, waiting its time in the blank of the sky." I read the novel in winter and will read this sentence multiple times again after the next snowfall. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase Winter from amazon.com.