Winter

I have read Winter three times, and with each reading, my admiration for the talent of Rick Bass grows.

As a writer, I favor economy and distillation as a means of mining the essence of a subject, which Bass demonstrates with his poetic yet conversational style.

He focuses on natural beauty, seeing the hidden connections around us, like deer antlers resembling tree branches. To read Winter is to live inside the wilderness he describes. His reverence for this world abounds on every page.