Halfman, Halfbook

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

It was an inauspicious start, an advert in  the Agony column of The Times. It read:

Exploring and sporting expedition, under experienced guidance, leaving England June, to explore rivers Central Brazil, if possible ascertain fate Captain Fawcett; abundance game, big and small; exceptional fishing; ROOM TWO MORE GUNS; highest references expected and given. – Write Box X, The Times, EC4

He wrote for particulars and after a little consideration, applied and was selected. His main qualifications were his age, 24 and his school, Eton.

They departed and undertook a fairly uneventful trip on a liner to Brazil. They had a telegram asking them not to undertake the search for Fawcett, with the threat of legislation being passed to hinder them. They stopped at Lisbon, Madeira and Tenerife and not having the strongest sea legs, he found the trip to be full of tedium. Nine days later they arrived at Rio as the sun was setting. Officials boards the ship to examine passports where they encounter the mind numbing pedantry of the minor official. They were eventually allowed to depart and readied themselves to depart to San Paulo in the morning.

Reader, they didn’t…

They finally departed after several false starts and lots of procrastination. The guy who was their main contact was Major Pringle. One morning there were two cars there to take them and a lorry had been provided for their baggage. The description of the journey sounded terrifying. Though I am not sure what was worse, the local driver heading towards them at full speed or the bridges they were crossing. It was an alien place, though he noted that the birds seemed familiar and yet utterly different at the same time. They would take lunch at different places on the trip, but invariably it was the same, rice and beans with roast meats.

Their first main stop is in Goyaz. It is a strange place where not much happens and even that happens very slowly. They end up becalmed there for a while and Fleming begins to suspect that their fixer, Major Pringle isn’t as committed to their quest as they had been led to believe. Fleming sets about trying to prove this with a false despatch that he had written for the papers back in the UK and getting Major Pringle to approve it. After another wait, they were finally allowed to proceed into the jungle.

There is a short journey by road again and they finally get to board the boats that will take them into the jungle. The batloa were 30′ clinker boats that leaked lots. They learned to settle into a routine, mostly to relieve the monotony of spending three weeks in a small boat. Fleming is amazed by the birds and wildlife that she sees from the gunwale.

They come across some of the Carajas Indians. Fleming admires certain parts of their features and describes a little of their life, but does note that they are staying with them and he isn’t seeing them in their camp, so his perception of them is skewed a little. He is entranced by the giant otters of the Amazon two of which they capture. They see alligators frequently on the river and in the spirit of the time, shoot a few…

The expedition is left in the lurch when Major Pringle has a change of heart over his commitments to the expedition and quits it to head back downstream in the smallest canoe. They were going to have to go it alone in the jungle searching for traces of Fawcett.

Since the dawn of time (whenever that was) this patch of the earth’s crust had been green and empty; it was green and empty still. Aeons had passed there unregarded. And now here were we, stealing minutes under the nose of eternity, counting our pretty swag in a place where a century was hardly legal tender. In all this there was a comforting sense of the ridiculous.

They decided to split the expedition into two; one half was going to continue on the rive and Flaming would join the land party. They come across another tribe called the Tapirapes. They are as curious about their Western visitors as Fleming’s party is about them. It was as Fleming was trying to get to sleep one night that he realised how futile the drive to find these three men who had disappeared seven years before, was. It wasn’t going to stop him though.

Progressing through the jungle was hard work though. Most of the time it was impenetrable and they could only move after a lot of frenzied macheting. They come across another river and camp and eat well. Another of the party is not well enough to carry on, so he heads back with the Indians who have accompanied them on their journey so far. In the end the jungle won, so they decided that the easiest way to progress was to wade up the river. (As can be seen on the cover of this edition).

They reach a point where they can’t really proceed any further because of the river. An enormous storm is a reminder of the power of nature and they make the sensible decision to turn back. It is a decision that Fleming knows saved their lives.

They return to the mission base and catch up with Major Pringle. He was still angry for various reasons, but not as angry as Fleming was when he found out that Pringle had not forwarded on the missives that he had written for the Times. Pringle hadn’t opened them, but he didn’t trust the contents so he heads off to the British consul, where he hope that his reputation can be kept. Fleming’s part ends up chasing him along the river in another boat with the intent of getting there before him. The race is on…

I thought that this was a really enjoyable travel book. You can tell that Fleming is a child of the British Empire with some of his prejudices, but generally he is sympathetic to the Brazilians, in particularly the Amazon natives. It is a great example of how not to plan an expedition. They took lots of unnecessary risks and were stitched up by their local fixer. All of these things contributed to it nearly becoming as big a disaster as Fawcett’s expedition.

Fleming is a good writer too and this is an engaging travel book with quite a lot of jeopardy! Though how he compares to his brother Ian, I have no idea as I have not read any of his. Another fine addition to the Eland catalogue

3 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Some people are born to climb mountains

Phil Gribbon is one of those people. He has a hugely impressive CV; he has over 100 first alpine ascents of mountains in the Arctic, has led expeditions in Greenland, America and Canada; has written for various illustrious publications and was awarded the Polar medal. Somehow he also had time to be a physics professor.

This book is a series of essays of his recollection of climbs and expeditions that he undertook over a number of years. Some of the essays are several pages long and others are just over a page. There are photos in the centre of the book and they have included sketches made by Gribbon throughout the book.

I thought that this was an interesting book. There are moments of exhilaration and awe that he feels as he makes his climbs. But these expeditions can be dangerous and he writes about a couple of tragic events – a reminder that however prepared and experienced that you are, it may not be enough.

His prose is crisp and he writes in a matter-of-fact style, as well as a bone-dry humour and a very healthy respect for the place that he is climbing. If you are looking for a book that is full of superlatives and eloquent prose about the mountains, then this might not be the book for you. Instead, it is recollections of memorable climbs that he has undertaken all over the world.

It is only a small thing, but I wasn’t keen on having the synopsis and who’s who at the beginning of the book in two different sections, I personally would have preferred the intro and context at the beginning of each essay. flipping back and forwards to see who was with him in each was a little tiresome.

That aside, if you have a love of mountains then this should be on your reading list.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

In the Spring of 2023, Ros Belford was back in Salina. A tiny island just off the coast of Sicily. It had been a while since she had been there, but the memories of that time came flooding back fully, when she stood outside the house she lived in with her daughters. The thought of breaking in as she had to do when she had forgotten her key, crosses her mind. She would love to see what the inside is like now and to bring back more memories. She doesn’t. But she does find a stone her daughters had painted of the volcano they could see from the house. She picks that up and walks away

Her earlier memories were from 2004 when her circumstances changed; splitting up from the father of her girls and a paid opportunity to update a guidebook meant that she could take them to Italy, a place she loves so much. The first trip was to Sicily and then on to Favignana. Their arrival in Sicily is an assault on the senses; the noise and the smells, the hot air blowing their hair from the open car window as it hurtles down the motorway to Trapani to catch the hydrofoil to Favignana. They arrive and just need to find somewhere to live.

She finds a room in Villa Antonella. It will do for the short term, but she needs to rent somewhere as the budget will not stretch to a hotel room for the duration. They settle into life on the island and start to get to know people.

Belford finds a suitable and affordable place to rent and moves in one evening after hurriedly buying bedding. Within a few days, it feels like home with toys and clothes strewn about the house. Life begins to feel normal once again, developing routines that fit their life there. They stay for the summer and then another opportunity to update a guidebook for Sicily comes up. When they are on the way over there, her daughter asks what those specs in the distance are. It turns out that they are the Aeolian islands and the memory of a conversation with a food critic surfaces, they loved the island of Salina.

She knew they had found their next place to live.

They travel the island on the bus, watching the raptors hanging in the air, noting the colours in the landscape as they pass. In the distance is the island of Stromboli with smoke rising from its active conical volcano. The bus driver tells them they may be able to see the lava at night.

She meets Emma, an English lady who had moved to the island to marry someone. It is the start of a long friendship. It feels, as the bus driver said, that the island has found them. As they get to know the locals, someone recommends a property to rent. It is a bit of a mess, but the view from the terrace is what sells it to her. Belford knows they will be happy there.

I really liked this book about the tiny islands of Sicily. It brought back happy memories of a holiday we had on the island in 2019. Belford’s writing is evocative, painting a picture of the landscape and the rich tapestry of life on this island. I liked the addition of two essays by her daughters at the end of the book too. They appreciated what their mother had done for them in their formative years and how living there had shaped their own lives for the good. I thought this was well worth reading.

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Extra Virgin by Annie Hawes
A Year In Provence by Peter Mayle

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Family members can be really hard to read. They often deal with some injustice that the author wishes to set the record straight on, or they can be a whimsical recount of a particular episode and the memories and subsequent events that happened. And then you come across memoirs like this one that haven’t been written with a specific aim in mind. They contain and reveal so much about the joy and pain of life, love and family.

The first thing that Malaney did when taking his partner to the family home was to take her to the bog. It is not the smallest room in the house, but the bog that was past his grandparent’s house and over some very wet ground to the sheer wall of peat. It is not the most auspicious start, but it sets the tone of the book. The first chapter is about the sounds he hears when he is down there. Mostly, the sound of the wind, from the gentle breeze that barely can be heard to the howling gales that have come in from the Atlantic.

He begins to record there, taking his inspiration from Richard Skelton and Pat Collins and the way that they use sound in their art. Returning to Ireland after some time away he sees that his grandfather, John Joe is beginning to fade away. He starts to record his grandfather’s voice secretly. They are not high-quality recordings but they are what he will have to remember the sound of his voice.

He thinks that there must have been members of his family in the same spot for at least 200 years, but the written records are a little sketchy. The home he lived in and his grandparent’s house and land became the stamping ground with his brothers and cousins and the neighbour’s kids. It was a place that they could just be. They built huts, made music and became their own people. The family memories also draped over this landscape became part of his personal hinterland.

All of the chapters are like this; a sense of belonging to that place he grew up in regardless of where in the world he happens to be. He has chosen a career that is culturally rewarding, but sadly not financially so. His grandfather is admitted to hospital in Dublin and he is back in the country and gets to see him more often. He notes that he is fading away because of his dementia.

Some of these essays are fragmented, snatched as they float through his memories, and others are heartfelt, more considered pieces that he has taken a long time writing. I found this to be a very moving book. Not only is Maleney a quality writer, but he draws deeply from his emotions to convey all the feelings he has about life as he finds it.

He writes about this little patch of Ireland beautifully too, describing its bleakness in a beautiful, tender way.I found that the way he writes about death is not morbid:

‘Death was the removal of a person from the flow of time’

I had never thought about it in that way before, but it made complete sense.

If you want to read a different type of memoir, that might give you a different outlook on life after, then this is a great book to start with.

5 out of 5 stars

The Moleskine notebook that I originally drafted this review in, I have been using on and off since 2015 when the first entry was on my birthday that year. It was one of three Star Wars-themed notebooks that I bought in a sale in a bookshop. I have about 30 pages to go to fill it up and then I can pick from one of the many <number redacted> notebooks that I have bought since then…

It wasn’t used that often when I first got it and now it comes everywhere with me. I draft reviews, write lists, make notes, and occasionally doodle and it has become an external part of my brain.

I had never really thought about where this little block of folded paper came from or where it began, but having seen this book was coming out and having read a number of books on stationary before it made me wonder when and where the notebook began. It is a subject that fascinated Roland Allen too and he decided to research and write a book about it.

The introduction starts with the creation of the book that I first wrote this in, the Moleskine. The original was a notebook made by a Parisian bookseller and made famous by Chatwin and Hemmingway and was reinvented. The modern version is now a world-famous brand used by lots of people around the world. I didn’t know this, until I went to Paris in 2024, that there are even Moleskine shops there!

His research has uncovered the first known recordings of these hand little aid memories and how they were first used by Italian merchants for recording sales and ledgers. He talks through the various paper and binding technologies that have been used through the Middle Ages and the different materials used since then.

There are chapters on famous notebook users and the legacy they left behind for us to study. There are chapters on travel writers, artists and sailors and how our European friends used them before bringing them to the UK.

Each chapter is short, engaging and full of fascinating facts. With this, he mixes personal anecdotes and gems that he has come across in his research. It doesn’t feel like an academic tome either, probably because he is a notebook user and diarist himself. If you have a thing about quality stationary, then this will be a perfect book for you.

I can also recommend:

Paper: An Elegy by Ian Sanson

The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting by Philip Hensher

To The Letter: A Journey Through a Vanishing World by Simon Garfield

Adventures in Stationery: Stories From Your Pencil Case by James Ward

Notebook by Tom Cox