Life in a cold climate
Winter Pasture must be the coldest book of the year. One day, Li Juan gave up her job running a store with her mother in Xinjiang, in China’s far northwest, to go with Kazakh nomad herders on their winter migration to see what it was like. It was cold. Bone-piercing, skin-destroying, prematurely ageing cold.
A few hours into the ride, Li describes how her skin cream has frozen, water has frozen and food is inedible. Riders have to sit almost in a fire for warmth, their backs still frozen. In one cold snap, the temperature falls to -40°C,
