As the author struggles with an emotional “winter” in her life, she finds ways to recover her equilibrium by observing how cold-weather cultures deal with the gray chill of wintertime. I found this book a little hard to get into; as a lifelong fan of wintertime and winter activities, I struggled with equating the season to a down emotional time. However, I can see the benefit of this book for people who a) find it hard to take time for themselves, and b) people who don’t know how to handle winter chill.