Most books that are collections of writers, particularly those from different philosophical and religious backgrounds, can suffer a bit from their inclusiveness and diversity of styles, and Winter: A Spiritual Biography of the Season, is no exception. Edited by Calvin College literature professors Gary Schmidt and Susan Felch, who are presumably of Christian persuasion, this book collects essay, story, and poetry around five broad themes relating loosely to the coldest of seasons (that is, if you live in a part of the world that experiences winter): Winter As a Time of Sorrow and Barrenness, Winter As a Time to Be Scoured, and a Time to Succor the Scoured, Winter As a Time to Shore Ourselves Up, Winter As a Time of Purity and Praise, and Winter As a Time of Delight and Play. As forecast by the themes, the writings run the gamut emotionally, from Jane Kenyon's poetry written in the deep of a winter of body and soul to Annie Dillard's playful recollection of throwing snowballs at cars from her delightful memoir, An American Childhood. Mostly, though, I felt a decidedly melancholy timbre to the experience as a whole. Perhaps being from the South, where the winters are not so cold, long, or dark, I don't really experience Winter as quite as dark and dreary as do these editors.

There are some beautiful selections here. I value the book for, if nothing else, re-introducing me to the poetry of Jane Kenyon. The images of a Winter morning from her "This Morning" are wonderful ("The cats doze near the stove./ They lift their heads/ as the plow goes down the road,/ making the house/ tremble as it passes.") There are evocative nature essays from Rachel Carson ("Under the Sea-Wind: A Naturalist's Picture of Ocean Life"), Annie Dillard ("Pilgrim At Tinker Creek"), Pete Fromm ("Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone In the Wilderness"), and, of course, Thoreau's "Walden." To grasp the diversity here, consider the inclusion of Sufi mystical poet Sultan Bahu, Korean poet Yun Sondo, or Sanskrit poet Vidyakara --- none of whom I likely would ever have read but for the introduction here.

I would, however, have appreciated more essays with the wit and humor of Patricia Hampl's "A Romantic Education," another memoir of growing up in a cold place (here Minnesota) with a sense of humor about it, as in this excerpt: "My father pointed with derision at the cars with Iowa license plates, hauling boats on trailers behind them, as we passed them on Highway 200 going north. 'Will you look at that,' he said. 'Those Iowa people have to lug that boat all the way up here.' My brother and I looked at the dummies in the Iowa car as we passed. 'They're crazy to get to the water, they'll even fish in the middle of the day,' he said, as if the Iowa Bedouins were so water mad that a school of walleye could toy with them in the noon heat, while my father cooly appeared at dawn and twilight to make the easy Minnesota-saavy kill. He pointed out to us, over and over, the folly of the Iowans and their pathetic pursuit of standing water." One has to be able to laugh at Winter as well as stoically endure it.

This book is a helpful introduction to the work of many writers and valuable for that reason alone. It does not do well, however, in focusing our attention on its five broad themes relating to Winter --- a concept which is conceptually interesting but difficult to execute with the broad variety of perspectives and styles represented here. The short introductions to the themes and writings provided by the editors are, in effect, dumbed-down, as they have to speak to factors common among many different religious perspectives. Better would be a book from an unabashedly Christian, Jewish, or other religious perspective, enabling the editors to speak more deeply of a particular selection's relationship to one's deepest convictions about the nature of truth, goodness, and beauty --- in Winter.

Many of these authors should be read. But this book itself need not be read. Save the money and buy a book of poetry by Jane Kenyon or Annie Dillard's An American Childhood. Read the Psalms. Discover Kathleen Norris' Dakota. Take a walk in the cold outdoors. Curl up with a book and a cat at the fire. Whether Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall, good writing is good for all seasons.