Winter Blessings

Widely known as one of Ireland's best-loved writers, here Patricia Scanlan offers readers a glimpse into her own life. In Winter Blessings, Patricia shares her favourite poems, childhood recollection and personal stories that have inspired her spiritual journey - all bound together by the season of short days and frosty nights.

From early Christmases with excited siblings in the cocoon of their parents' love to learning poems by rote 'on the hard wooden chairs' of the classroom, and on through later days, suffering from chronic bank pain and struggling to make sense of her own life, here are treasured poems and stories from one woman's life and her journey towards self-understanding and self-healing.