Fifty Words for Snow

After a year of voyaging through dictionaries in search of snow stories from around the world, I'm over the moon to announce my new book Fifty Words for Snow published this week by Elliott & Thompson. 

Fifty Words for Snow covers the alphabet from avalanche (French) to zud (Mongolian). It is a compendium of worldwide winter words: from American Sign Language (via a story of snowboarding at the Deaflympics) and Hawaiian (how snow comes to the aid of environmentalists protesting a giant telescope on a sacred mountain) to Tibetan (the beautiful snow lotus, which is collected for its medicinal uses) and Russian (the sastrugi which bedevil explorers in Antarctica yet help them orient their steps). I look at contemporary kunstschnee in movies such as Red Sparrow and Bladerunner 2, and discover the legends surrounding Itztlacoliuhqui, the terrifying ancient Aztec god of Frost.

Fifty Words for Snow can be ordered online through many retailers including Waterstones and Blackwells, or any independent bookshop. Please order from small businesses where possible, as these vital need support now more than ever.

 

The Wine Breath

Yesterday I reread The Wine Breath, a short story by John McGahern that I first heard as a New Yorker fiction podcast, read by the author Yiyun Li. That was way back in 2009 (it is still available in iTunes: scroll down to 68) but I've returned to the story many times since, always finding in it a new brilliance  and sometimes an uncanny synchronicity with my own writing concerns.

 

Road to the Sky iv (2009) by Bill Jacklin RA

© Bill Jacklin

'The priest put his hand to the black gate, bolted to the first of the alders, 

and was at once arrested by showery sunlight falling down the avenue...'

My latest reading was instigated by a meeting with the artist Bill Jacklin. I was reminded of the story while looking at Jacklin’s paintings and monotypes in the Royal Academy Summer show after we’d concluded our interview. This is just an anachronistic fantasy, but McGahern's entire story could be seen as a wonderful response to Jacklin's paintings. Take a closer look at Jacklin’s work, and you’ll see what I mean.