Month of Joy: Summertime in Sydney by Thoraiya Dyer
December in Sydney is summertime. Some of my greatest joys this time of year: My animal patients, the creativity of winter decorations in Sahara-like heat, the sound of cellos and the taste of chocolate. It’s a privilege being a veterinarian, and my patients come in two varieties – domesticated and wild. The sadness of their short lives, being there to see them sicken, staying stoic while they succumb to age or injury, as you shepherd them through their decline, are all balanced by the beauty, the brilliance, the miracle, that we get to share our time on the earth with them.
Month of Joy: Falling Snow and Rising Spirits by Phoebe Barton
Every December, a holiday-themed zone opens up in Star Trek Online: Q’s Winter Wonderland, a place where players can forget about spatial anomalies and chroniton fluxes and enjoy themselves in a place where no one ever dies, where the only enemies are made of snow and candy, and where it’s always winter. I found myself spending a lot of time there in 2017, even if I no longer have any real in-game reason to, and not just because it was 2017. I wondered why until it clicked — winter, a proper northern winter, is one of my sources of joy.
Month of Joy: Settings of Silver and Gold by Kate Heartfield
I live in a cold part of the world, so you might think that at this time of the year I’d be looking for escape in stories set in the tropics. But I find the books that bring me joy in the winter tend to be set in this season, in the Middle Ages in Europe. One of them is Connie Willis’s 1992 time-travel novel, Doomsday Book. Another is Umberto Eco’s first novel, The Name of the Rose, published in 1980.
