Winterlust: Finding Beauty in the Fiercest Season

A sweeping, beautiful survey of all things winter.


Brunner masterfully does in words what resilient and adventurous people have done in their lives for centuries; he finds beauty in blizzards and ice and the crystallized enchantment of snow."
-Dan Egan, Pulitzer finalist and author of The Death and Life of the Great Lakes


In Winterlust, a farmer painstakingly photographs five thousand snowflakes, each one dramatically different from the next. Indigenous peoples thrive on frozen terrain, where famous explorers perish. Icicles reach deep underwater, then explode. Rooms warmed by crackling fires fill with scents of cinnamon, cloves, and pine. Skis carve into powdery slopes, and iceboats traverse glacial lakes.


This lovingly illustrated meditation on winter entwines the spectacular with the everyday, expertly capturing the essence of a beloved yet dangerous season, which is all the more precious in an era of climate change