What to Look for in Winter
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Review
'the author folds in on herself in tight, dense, intricate coils, then unfolds herself again with miraculous lightness and delicacy.'
--Guardian
McWilliam writes with elegance, with sardonic humour and with honesty. --The Sunday Times
What a precise and poetic dissection of a life this is; how brave she was, and how wise, to undertake it. --The Telegraph
...the most startling, discomforting, complicated, ungovernable, hilarious and heart-rending of memoirs.
-- The Telegraph
'So begins one of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year' --The Times
'An essential book in all of its aspects... a thing of beauty... the work of a vulnerable, unfailingly generous soul.' --The Scotsman
A 'never-less-than-enticing chronicle of a troubled life' -- The Herald
`A rare thing: a misery memoir that, while touching the far reaches of pain, leaves one feeling enriched, not dirty'
-- Financial Times
'It is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
'This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book...a powerful work of art' --Scotland on Sunday
'A fine, challenging autobiography...That she survived to write a book as good as this is nothing short of miraculous.'
--Daily Mail
`What to Look for in Winter...is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
`This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book.' --Scotland on Sunday
`...a...challenging autobiography that reminds you that misfortune is always beating against the window, attracted by the light of happiness' --Daily Mail
`One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth' -- Independent
`...beautiful, harrowing and in every way remarkable.' -- New Statesman
'A book that, for all the brilliance of its author, doesn't seem completely aware of everything it has revealed.' -- Guardian
'...wonderful yet disturbing book... -- The Critics
"gripping and unexpected... this remarkable memoir, `a baton in the dark', which McWilliam bravely passes to the reader." --Literary Review
"Her long book yields an unmistakable human being, and is seldom disheartening, woes and all." --TLS
It's been too long since Candia McWilliam's last book... She has lost none of her grace of expression and freshness of thought. A remarkable and brave book. --The Observer
` Candia McWilliams has won this year's South Bank Sky Arts Awards literature prize with her What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness, published by Jonathan Cape.' --The Bookseller writes,
'It's as if we're reading her thoughts unedited, which makes the many rhythmic, arresting passages all the more impressive. McWilliam doesn't hold back: she makes us feel how frightening it is inside her head. There's no sickly heroism. Resentful, muddles, undignified, unmoored, she is captivating'
--London Review of Books
`The most brutally honest and beautifully written account I have read of somebody's own failings and suffering' --Daily Mail
`What makes her memoir impressive isn't the story she has to tell - rich in drama though it is - but her artistry as a writer' --Independent
`magnificent memoir. Moving from her childhood in Edinburgh to the experimental surgery that restored her sight, the book is a triumph.'
--I
`An endlessly rewarding account'. --The Herald Arts Review
`McWilliam is such a good writer, this is an important and useful book'. --The Guardian
--Guardian
McWilliam writes with elegance, with sardonic humour and with honesty. --The Sunday Times
What a precise and poetic dissection of a life this is; how brave she was, and how wise, to undertake it. --The Telegraph
...the most startling, discomforting, complicated, ungovernable, hilarious and heart-rending of memoirs.
-- The Telegraph
'So begins one of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year' --The Times
'An essential book in all of its aspects... a thing of beauty... the work of a vulnerable, unfailingly generous soul.' --The Scotsman
A 'never-less-than-enticing chronicle of a troubled life' -- The Herald
`A rare thing: a misery memoir that, while touching the far reaches of pain, leaves one feeling enriched, not dirty'
-- Financial Times
'It is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
'This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book...a powerful work of art' --Scotland on Sunday
'A fine, challenging autobiography...That she survived to write a book as good as this is nothing short of miraculous.'
--Daily Mail
`What to Look for in Winter...is an extremely sagacious book about loss' --The Observer
`This is a moving, uplifting, shocking and compellingly strange book.' --Scotland on Sunday
`...a...challenging autobiography that reminds you that misfortune is always beating against the window, attracted by the light of happiness' --Daily Mail
`One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth' -- Independent
`...beautiful, harrowing and in every way remarkable.' -- New Statesman
'A book that, for all the brilliance of its author, doesn't seem completely aware of everything it has revealed.' -- Guardian
'...wonderful yet disturbing book... -- The Critics
"gripping and unexpected... this remarkable memoir, `a baton in the dark', which McWilliam bravely passes to the reader." --Literary Review
"Her long book yields an unmistakable human being, and is seldom disheartening, woes and all." --TLS
It's been too long since Candia McWilliam's last book... She has lost none of her grace of expression and freshness of thought. A remarkable and brave book. --The Observer
` Candia McWilliams has won this year's South Bank Sky Arts Awards literature prize with her What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness, published by Jonathan Cape.' --The Bookseller writes,
'It's as if we're reading her thoughts unedited, which makes the many rhythmic, arresting passages all the more impressive. McWilliam doesn't hold back: she makes us feel how frightening it is inside her head. There's no sickly heroism. Resentful, muddles, undignified, unmoored, she is captivating'
--London Review of Books
`The most brutally honest and beautifully written account I have read of somebody's own failings and suffering' --Daily Mail
`What makes her memoir impressive isn't the story she has to tell - rich in drama though it is - but her artistry as a writer' --Independent
`magnificent memoir. Moving from her childhood in Edinburgh to the experimental surgery that restored her sight, the book is a triumph.'
--I
`An endlessly rewarding account'. --The Herald Arts Review
`McWilliam is such a good writer, this is an important and useful book'. --The Guardian
Book Description
A beautifully written, moving and extraordinary work of autobiography from one of the leading figures of the British literary world.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I haven't read any other Candia McWilliam books but was drawn to this because of the reviews. I've almost finished it and noticing that I'm reading very slowly now because I don't want it to end. It's also one of the few books I've ever resolved to re-read immediately. I've found it a truly extraordinary read. Her exquisite use of language and unbelievably original phrasing, the way she describes the indescribable...every page is gobsmacking. (If I was clever, I'd think of a word you had to look up here!). Other critics here have found 'name-dropping' a problem, but she can't help the circles she's grown up in and she clearly doesn't intend to 'name-drop', so don't let that put you off. In fact, in many ways she comes across as someone who has curiously low self-esteem, someone who struggles in her life on so many levels, so I can't help but warm to her. And as much as her language is complex and sometimes hard to read (but in a good way!), you can turn the page and find a really ordinary bit of prose and way of saying something that sits quite oddly with the rest and endears you to her, because she plainly isn't just some posh or privileged one-dimensional person who has it all sewn up, but someone who can describe base suffering in a way to make you weep. The running thread of her life as an unwilling, yet willing, spectre in her ex-husband's new relationship, is totally heartbreaking. If I could wish her a gift, I'd wish her a pair of wings to escape. How can she bear to stand on the sidelines and see his love for someone else, when she appears to still love him and regret breaking up from him? But then her eyes cannot see what her heart is grieving over. Awesome.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I can understand why Jane Napier so intensely disliked the name-dropping. I also hated it at the beginning. I was as irritated as I think she was. BUT I actually loved the book in spite of it. I found it riveting to observe a battle between the pretention and the brilliance. When people say it was raw, this was the rawness for me; the fact that nobody told her to get rid of the name-dropping, let it all be there, alongside the brilliance, not just of the language but the terrifying knowingness of Candia's mind. I'd say: read to the end. The second half of the book overcomes the first half where the name-dropping is at its worst. Someone else wrote in their review that the book lives on with you. I found this too. I think Candia's consciousness is utterly worth sticking by, whatever the blemishes. At the risk of sounding pretentious (!) it's like a cave full of treasures and the occasional bit of crap; crap which is just part of life. We all do it, after all. The combination is what I liked about it. I do think she is brilliant, almost whatever she does and is. And with so much plot-driven writing about, it's refreshing to be in the company of brilliance. She carried me through Christmas and that's saying something.
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I've always enjoyed Candia McWilliam's writing. Her sentences are so wonderful I used to just sit inside them for a bit before reading on. Her heartstopping memoir holds you in thrall long after you've read the last page. The narrative of her life is told here in fragmented, discursive episodes, interspersed with reflections on writing, on memory and loss, remorse and regret, and exquisite descriptions, as subtle and exact as poetry, of the landscape of Colonsay, an island she loves. It is in many ways a heartbreaking book. The author is beautiful and gifted, but has suffered the agonies of alcoholism and blindness and the loss of those she loved. But this is not a misery memoir. She is brave, generous, compassionate and loving. She is also wry and very funny. Her public voice has been stilled for too long. It returns here as vigorous, insightful, precise and beautiful as ever. Welcome back.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
What to Look for in Winter
This book both infuriates and fascinates. Candia McWilliams has to be one of the most pretentious name-droppers on the literary scene. Read more
Published 17 days ago by Cameron45
Belles-lettres.
Beautifully written, with a phenomenal command of the English language. It is a joy to experience these recollections of her early life in Edinburgh, her relationships, and her... Read more
Published 1 month ago by P. Kinsella
What to look for in Winter by Candia McWilliam
I very much agree with Jane Napier's review of this book. Unlike her I did finish it by scanning the last 100 pages, just in case I would miss an important event or change. Read more
Published 2 months ago by critica
A masterpiece
I found this an unbelievably moving, unsparing account by a supremely gifted writer of a life more marked by loss and sadness from an early age than many people will experience in... Read more
Published 3 months ago by G. Hamway
Mixed feelings
I haven't read anything by Candia McWilliam since "A Case Of Knives" when it was first published, but I was attracted to this by the quality of the writing and by the title -... Read more
Published 6 months ago by John Mccartney
Compelling and Painful
I found this memoir compelling. As intimate as a diary, it's the story of one woman's unravelling. Written in dense, highly articulate prose it creates an unforgettable and painful... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Bel Sea
Pretentious & tedious
Not a common opinion judging by the other reviews, but this book was truly dreadful. I struggled to finish it and only persevered because I will be discussing it at Book Group... Read more
Published 6 months ago by K Dapre
Ambivalent
I would give this book a four star rating because Candia McWilliams is extra-ordinarily intelligent and some of her writing is wonderful - particularly the bit about her childhood... Read more
Published 8 months ago by If Only You Knew
A memoir
This book was not for me. It is a collection of thoughts interspersed with memories of the author's past
It tends to dwell too much on name dropping, faintly remembered... Read more
It tends to dwell too much on name dropping, faintly remembered... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Maggie123
Loved it!!
Wow!! Brilliant, beautiful, amazing. Some of her phrases left me breathless. Some of her language or references I did not understand as I am not as well read or familiar with... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Susan Ingram
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