Ester
2026년 1월 9일
Our book of February is Andrew Miller's <The Land in Winter>.
We read Wharton’s Summer last August, and as winter began to show its belly, I found myself wanting its opposite - a book that would meet the season on its own terms, before it slipped away. Joyce’s “The Dead” from Dubliners had satisfied the itch, at least briefly. Wharton’s Ethan Frome, perhaps - but I’ve read it already, so that doesn’t count. And then, sitting in the to-be-read stack on my desk, I spotted it: what better title for the task than The Land in Winter?
I’ve heard the novel praised for its contemplative, understated prose, the kind that doesn’t announce itself but settles quietly into you - which feels, somehow, like exactly the sort of reading winter invites. However one chooses to classify it - literary, historical, or something in between - there is a particular pleasure in entering a world set in a time we know only through secondhand knowledge: to inhabit the lives people once led, and to discover, often with a faint shock, how little we have changed in the ways that matter.
I haven’t read Andrew Miller before, but the steady admiration for his prose proved hard to resist. So he becomes our February choice, helped along by a paperback edition that seems quite accessible in more than one sense. I hope you enjoy the read. See you in February.
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December 1962, The West Country. Local doctor Eric Parry, mulling secrets, sets out on his rounds, while his pregnant wife sleeps on in the warmth of their cottage. Across the field, funny, troubled Rita Simmons is also asleep, her head full of images of a past life her husband prefers to ignore. He's been up for hours, tending to the needs of the small dairy farm where he hoped to create a new version of himself, a project that's already faltering. But when the ordinary cold of an English December gives way to violent blizzards, the two couples find their lives beginning to unravel. Where do you hide when you can't leave home? And where, in a frozen world, can you run to?
1962년 12월, 잉글랜드 서부 지방. 의사 에릭 패리는 비밀들을 곱씹으며 왕진길에 나선다. 임신한 아내는 아늑한 오두막의 온기 속에 여전히 잠들어 있다. 들판 건너편에서는 리타 시먼스 역시 잠들어 있는데, 그녀의 머릿속은 남편이 외면하고 싶어 하는 과거의 삶에 대한 이미지들로 가득하다. 남편은 이미 몇 시간째 깨어 작은 낙농장의 일들을 돌보고 있다. 그곳은 그가 새로운 자신을 만들어보려 했던 장소지만, 그 계획은 벌써부터 흔들리고 있다. 그러나 영국의 12월 추위가 거센 눈보라로 변해가면서, 두 부부의 삶의 이야기가 서서히 드러나기 시작하는데… 집을 떠날 수 없을 때, 어디에 숨을 수 있을까? 얼어붙은 세상 가운데, 과연 어디로 달아날 수 있을까?
Sunday, February 22, 2026, at 5pm
Join us for an evening of camaraderie and intellectual stimulation. Admission is free, but attendance is restricted to individuals of college age and above. You can sign up for the meeting via Karrot (당근 모임) or secure your spot through Kakao (에스더어학원).
세종에 거주하고 있는 외국인을 포함해 교사, 강사, 회사원, 공무원 및 가사일을 하시는 분들에게도 원서독서를 장려하고 자유롭게 토론할 수 있는 문학적/문화적 소통과 교류의 공간이 되고자 합니다. 해당 책을 읽고, 영어로 소통이 가능한 대학생 이상의 성인에 한해 누구나 무료로 참석할 수 있습니다. 2026년 2월 모임의 책으로는 Andrew Miller의 <The Land in Winter>를 읽습니다.