In All Weathers by Matt Gaw

4 out of 5 stars

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

If you are thinking of planning an event in the UK that is dependent on the weather being good then it is a bit of a lottery. You might have a fantastic day of sun in the middle of March, or downpours in the middle of August.

When the weather isn’t nice, most people tend to head indoors, after all, who wants to get wet or lose their hat in the wind? But in this book, Gaw wants to explore for himself what being out in various inclement weathers is actually like. He begins in the rain, the weather that has spoiled 1000 barbeques and ruined all sorts of occasions. Most, i.e. normal people, choose not to venture out in the rain, though some people don’t really have a choice. It is a weather type that we need, we rely on water to give us life and irrigate crops, but too much of it can be a disaster.

I must admit I am not a fan of going out in the rain, probably from too many soakings when cycling to and from work in the rain. I do like the sound of the rain on canvas and listening to rain on a conservatory roof while it hammers down is quite the experience. The is a particular pleasure to summer rain; petrichor. These are the oils released by the rain and they give of such a distinctive smell that is almost addictive.

Seeking rain takes Gaw to the Lakes, one of the wetter parts of the UK. As he walks the fells, a storm approaches, and suddenly, he is in the middle of it. He pokes his tongue out to drink the rain as it falls around him, but it brings back memories of acid rain, an almost nostalgic memory where we can see the tumult of climate change begin to unleash itself.

 

Finding rain is straightforward, we have had the wettest 18 months here in the UK so it will be raining somewhere… Finding fog or mist is much harder. Very specific conditions are needed and even then it is elusive, very elusive.

These particular climate conditions mean that it can often be pure luck that you come across it. But of the times when it does happen, autumn is the most common season to get it where I live in Dorset. I never know if we are going to have it or not and glancing out the window after I have got up will soon show if we have fog. This unpredictability means that Gaw has to work to find it in his part of the country. He checks the forecasts obsessively and even having the correct conditions in place is no guarantee.

He heads out to Great Livermere and parts in the dark. He and his son make their way to the mere, he can see the mist hanging over the water. At last, he has found it. It isn’t swirling, as you often would see in many horror films, but the density of the mist varies in thickness as they pass it. Capturing the essence of what they are seeing is much harder though. It is a reminder that this low-lying cloud can change so much of what we see and hear about us.

Finding ice and snow is much easier than fog. However, it is getting much harder in this country due to the effects of climate change. Gone are the hard winters of the past with their bright crips days, now we have more precipitation and much higher than average temperatures.

We rarely get snow in Dorset, so much so that I remember that satellite photo showing the entire country white, except my part of Dorset… I do like a bit of snow and frost. A hard frost with clear blue skies is quite special. Where Gaw lives on the fens it is often blasted by icy winds from the Arctic or Siberia, he describes it as turning the grass to glistening metal. When he heads out it is supposed to be -2C but it feels much colder. They are entranced by the way that the hoar frost has touch the plants by the path.

It is cold enough to freeze some of the fens, supposedly the coldest day in over a decade with temperatures well below zero. The ice is around 3 inches thick, right at the lowest limit for safely skating and when the reach the edge, they see skaters moving at speed across the ice.

To find snow he has to head north to Scotland and has thankfully got a Christmas holiday arranged on the Isle of Skye. They swim (!!!) in a bitterly cold sea and warm up in front of a blazing fire pit. The clouds a re thick like smoke and when it begins to snow they are a little surprised and delighted in equal measure.

Wind is one of the strangest of all weather phenomena. You can feel it, and hear it if it is strong enough and see its effects, but you can’t actually see it. The wind systems that flow endlessly around the planet have built empires, flattened cities and driven people mad.

The best place to experience wind in my opinion is by the coast. Standing on a beach and leaning into the wind as the waves pound the shore is for me an elemental experience. Gaw experiences this at Neist Point, as they walk out they can feel the raw power of the wind pushing against them. Some winds are famous enough to acquire names and reputations, one famous one is the Mistral in Provence, but in the UK we only have, one, The Helm. I kind of fee there should be more of them.

If you want a book that explains weather phenomena, then this probably isn’t going to be the book for you. The crux of this is one man’s desire to experience all types of weather rather than just the sunny days. I liked this a lot, probably because I find the weather endlessly fascinating, I love storms and have taken numerous pictures of clouds when out and about. I like Gaw’s writing in this too. He is engaging and it feels more personal than his previous books. If you have the slightest interest in the weather, then I would recommend reading this.

Muscat & Oman by Ian Skeet

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

The Sultanate of Muscat and Oman was untroubled by foreigners and travellers for years and years. This all changed in 1970 when the promise of oil revenues opened the country up a little.

Ian Skeet was one of the very few who managed to get access to the country before that change happened and the oil money began to pour in.

This book is a record of his time spent in the country from 1966 to 1968. He was there to see first-hand how a pretty much medieval kingdom had survived most of the way through the 20th century without changing at all.

He worked for an oil company and was fortunate that he had access to all parts of the country. He sees the beauty in the arid and desolate landscapes that he travels through, recounting journeys with a sympathetic eye.

I thought that the most interesting parts of his travels were in the walled cities and the small desert villages. There he sees life as it really is for the inhabitants of the countries. He sees the daily rituals and habits of the people and captures a picture of them with his observations. He isn’t scared to write about the poverty and oppression of a people that have been living under a strong autocratic leader and show how things really are.

His prose is not lyrical and evocative. Rather this is a pragmatic and inquiring view of a country and its people before they have change imposed on them by a wider world and petro-dollars. Their way of life, tough as it is will never be the same again. Worth reading though, and a fine addition to the Eland library.

Black Ghosts by Noo Saro-Wiwa

4.5 out of 5 stars

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

It has been a number of years since I have been to China, but I still remember the first time. It was unlike anything that I had ever experienced, the smells, the mass of people, the food and the mild terror of being driven on the roads was a sensory overload. One thing that I know I didn’t see outside Hong Kong airport was any black people.

It turns out though that there is a fairly large ex-pat community of Africans in parts of China. There are about 20,000 of them living in an area of Guangzhou are from Nigeria, Noo Saro-Wiwa’s original home.

Saro-Wiwa wants to meet these Africans and understand a little of what it is like to live in this country. Navigating the tube she missies out of getting a seat as the Chinese are much more ruthless than her in grabbing them. She finally arrives at Guang Yuanxi Road, the centre of African activity. She was among her people at last.

She takes time to absorb the sights and the smells and spends time watching the Africans and Chinese going about their business. She tries her hand at bartering, but the Chinese stallholders behave very differently to what she is used to and refuse to budge on price.

But she is here to meet the people who are trying to make this country their home. She finds stories of people who are traders, exporters and even the odd drug dealers. She meets Africans who have been residents for years and have even married locals. Even though they are living there the visa requirements for them are quite onerous and any tiny discrepancies can mean deportation and that might come with a five-year ban on returning to China. This has been a big problem for those with financial and family commitments.

The Africans are frequently the recipients of subtle and overt racism from the Chinese and have to be careful not to make a scene. Saro-Wiwa talks to a number of people who have outstayed their visas and who use all manner of methods to stay well under the radar and avoid arrest and deportation.

I thought this was a fascinating book. Saro-Wiwa is an engaging writer who takes time to tease out these Black Ghosts. I liked that she didn’t do much research before going. It meant that each encounter and experience was fresh and surprising to her and also to me as the reader. This is a well-written travel book that has a very different slant to most travel books.

Cairn by Kathleen Jamie

5 out of 5 stars

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

Cairn or Carn in Gaelic means just a pile of stones. They are just a marker of some event or place and can be found all over the world. Some of them can be really old reaching far back into pre-history. In this collection of prose. poems and essays, Jamie has drawn together pieces that are her marker of 60 years on this planet.

The collection begins with her remembering walking southwards towards the lighthouses. A storm has blown up and she is leaning into the wind. As soon as she passes the shelter of the houses, she gets to feel the full force of the wind and is almost blown over. She pauses in the lee of the wind and watches the waves, hears the wind and sees the pulse of the light flashing in the night.

She was soon to find love after this, make a home, and bring up children. Writing opportunities came her way and suddenly she is thirty years older. This book is looking back at what happened over those three decades and this is a marker of that time. But there are no rough rocks in here, rather there precious stones and gems.

Whatever we begin (begin again)
We begin lonely

To say I loved this book would be an understatement. Jamie has always been one of my favourite authors. Her pin-sharp observations of the things that I would never think to glance at, and the way that she moulds her words into the prose and poems that lie within, is just breathtaking. If there was a tiny flaw with the book I thought that it was too short, but I say this out of greed on my part. This isn’t a cairn, this is a literary example of the stone balancer’s art. Please read it as soon as you are able to get your hands on a copy.

September 2024 Review

Where on earth did September go? Answers on a postcard, please! Even though it whizzed by, it was a good reading month with another five-star read right at the end. I didn’t by as many as I have done on previous months either so that is a small victory that I will take!

 

Books Read

Children of the Volcano – Ros Belford – 4 Stars

The Gun Seller – Hugh Lawrie – 2.5 Stars

Selling Manhattan – Carol Ann Duffy – 3 Stars

The Volunteers: A Memoir of Conservation, Companionship and Community – Carol Donaldson – 4 Stars

Discovering Timber-framed Buildings – Richard Harris – 3 Stars

Salacious Sussex – Viv Croot – 3 Stars

The Haunted Places of Hampshire – Ian Fox – 3 Stars

The Elephant Vanishes – Haruki Murakami – 3

Vagabond: A Hiker’s Homage to Rural Spain – Mark Eveleigh – 4 Stars

Heart Of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – 2 Stars

Late Light: Finding Home In The West Country – Michael Malay – 4.5 Stars

Uprooting: From The Caribbean To The Countryside: Finding Home In An English Country Garden – Marchelle Farrell – 4 Stars

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders And Belonging – Jessica J Lee – 4 Stars

 

Book(s) Of The Month

Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place – Alice Maddicott – 5 Stars

 

Top Genres

Fiction – 30

Travel – 26

Natural History – 13

Poetry – 9

Memoir – 7

Science Fiction – 6

Miscellaneous – 4

Food & Drink – 3

Humour – 3

History – 3

 

Top Publishers

Bloomsbury – 7

Vintage – 5

Canongate – 4

Picador – 4

Summersdale – 4

Eland – 3

Faber & Faber – 3

Saraband – 3

Penguin Classics – 3

September Books – 2

 

Review Copies Received

In Search of the Perfect Peach: Why Flavour Holds the Answer to Fixing Our Food System – Franco Fubini

Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind: In Pursuit of Remarkable Mushrooms – Richard Fortey

Prisoners of Geography: The Quiz Book: How Much Do You Really Know About the World? – Tim Marshall

 

Library Books Checked Out

Tender Maps: Travels in Search of the Emotions of Place – Alice Maddicott

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders And Belonging – Jessica J Lee

Uprooting: From The Caribbean To The Tountryside: Finding Home In An English Country Garden – Marchelle Farrell

Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain – Corrine Fowler

 

Books Bought

La Vie: A Year In Rural France – John Lewis-Stempel

Cacophony Of Bone – Kerri Ní Dochartaigh

The Ongoing Moment – Geoff Dyer

Provence – John Flower & Charlie Waite

The Virago Book of Women Gardeners – Deborah Kellaway (Ed)

Return to Paris: A Memoir With Recipes – Colette Rossant

A Tourist in the Arab Spring – Tom Chesshyre

Abroad in Japan: Ten Years In The Land Of The Rising Sun – Chris Broad

Land of the Turquoise Mountains: Journeys Across Iran – Cyrus Massoudi

Sport – Dennis Brailsford

Blackmoor Vale Childhood – Hilary Townsend (Signed)

The New Granta Book of Travel – Liz Jobey (Ed)

The Common Reader – Alan Bennett (Signed)

All At Sea: One man. One bathtub. One very bad idea. – Tim FitzHigham

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall – Anna Funder (Signed)

A Siberian Winter’s Tale: Cycling to the Edge of Insanity and the End of the World – Helen Lloyd

Too Late To Turn Back: Barbara And Graham Greene In Liberia – Barbara Greene

A Tourist in the Arab Spring – Tom Chesshyre

Megalithic Tombs and Long Barrows in Britain – Frances Lynch

The Downhill Hiking Club: A Short Walk Across The Lebanon – Dom Joly

Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey – Felicity Cloake (Signed)

 

So are there any from that list that you have read, or now seeing them, now want to read? Let me know in the comments below.

October 2024 TBR

I have a much shorter TBR this month as I have 30 books to get me to my Good Reads target of 150. Or just over 10 a month. It means that I can get to some of the chunkier books that are on my TBR now.  So here they all are:

 

Still Reading

Nature Writing for Every Day of the Year – Ed. Jane McMorland Hunter

A Cloud a Day – Gavin Pretor-Pinney

A Year Of Garden Bees & Bugs: 52 stories of intriguing insects – Dominic Couzens & Gail Ashton

Citadel – Kate Mosse

 

Challenge Books

Seveneves – Neal Stephenson

 

Review Books

Empordan Scafarlata – Adrià Pujol Cruells Tr. Douglas Suttle

The Border – A Journey Around Russia: Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, … Finland, Norway and the Northeast

Passage – Erika Fatland Tr. Kari Dickson

Brazilian Adventure – Peter Fleming

Prisoners of Geography: The Quiz Book: How Much Do You Really Know About the World? – Tim Marshall

 

Library Books

The Rosewater Redemption – Tade Thompson

All My Wild Mothers: A Memoir Of Motherhood, Loss And An Apothecary Garden – Victoria Bennet

Island to Island : From Somerset to Seychelles – Sally Mills

Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain – Corrine Fowler

 

Other Books

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics – Tim Marshall

 

Poetry

Still Life in Milford: Poems – Thomas Lynch

 

Seaglass by Kathryn Tann

5 out of 5 stars

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

I haven’t found much seaglass recently when wandering along the beach. When we were in Sardinia a few years ago, I found loads on the beaches there and brought them home. I love its pale, jewel-like qualities, the razor-sharp edges of the glass rubbed smooth by its passage through the ocean.

Even though I found a lot in Sardinia, there was never enough to fill an old-style sweet jar, unlike Kathryn Tann. It is one of her favourite possessions, containing memories of the beaches that she has visited and the jangle of the glass in her pocket as she left the rubbly beach with her most recent finds.

It is the essay on her seaglass that starts this frankly magnificent collection of essays and other fragments of Tann’s writing. She has deftly woven a mix of memoir, family history, nature writing and even a little travel writing.

This smorgasbord of writing, some longer pieces, some only a page and others only a paragraph and about a variety of subjects from the perfect gravy, swimming and even dance. These fragments of her life have been picked up and poured carefully into this book.

You could read the pages of a book under this moon. Everything is sepia; the grass is bleached, the dark sea silver-plated, reversing the whole scene’s shadows like a negative photo reel.

I loved this book. The prose is sparse and measured and she writes each piece from her heart. I am not sure who her literary influences are, but she is the closest author that I have read to Kathleen Jamie. This is a truly wonderful book and I can’t wait to read more from her.

Brandy Sour by Constantia Soteriou, Translated by Lina Protopapa

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

The completion of the Ledra Palace Hotel was the moment that Cyprus felt that it had joined the modern world. But this was early in the 1050s and the peaceful island life they had enjoyed up until now was about to change forever.

It begins with a King. A mere King of the once magnificent country, Egypt. He has booked an entire floor at the hotel so he can contemplate his troubles in relative peace. He heads down to the bar and asks the barman to make him a drink that doesn’t look alcoholic. The barman makes him a brandy sour. It is a sweet and sour drink that fits his mood perfectly.

There is a sherbet for a young lady, a photographer chooses a beer, Jasmin tea for a poet and the maitre’d of the hotel chooses a coffee. The guerrilla fighter selects a VSOP brandy and this is the first hint in the book that this is also an account of the conflict played out on this Mediterranean island that would split it in two and cause untold suffering and misery for the population.

This is a subtle book that reveals the horrors of strife and conflict. Each chapter has a person at its heart and they select a drink that is suited to their particular circumstances.

I liked the way that the book dealt with this. What starts of as an idyllic place slowly descends into strife, the desires of the characters and the drinks that they choose change. The life they once had has gone and their despondency as life crashes down around them is evident from the prose. It shows how quickly that the life that you know can unravel with conflict. Well worth reading.

 

Vagabond by Mark Eveleigh

Welcome to Halfman, Halfbook for my stop on the Blog Tour for Vagabond by Mark Eveleigh and published by Summersdale.

About the Book

This incredible true story of one man’s 1,225-km hike across the Iberian Peninsula is a celebration of rural Spain along the road less travelled.

Inspired by a nomadic “vagabundo” he met decades ago, travel writer Mark Eveleigh eschews the fast pace of modern life and sets off on a solo hike 1,225 km across the Iberian Peninsula – from Gibraltar in the far south to Estaca de Bares, Spain’s most northerly tip – carrying just a backpack and a hammock.
Hiking through sleepy siesta-hour plazas, shady cork forests and heat-shimmering plains, the hours would be long, dusty and hot. But, as Mark passes through the many small villages and communities en route, his trek comes to be characterized most of all by the sharing of stories, the true kindness of strangers, and the unbridled freedom of the open road.

Recounting Mark’s fascinating nomadic journey through Spain’s least-visited region, Extremadura, Vagabond is a homage to the disappearing lifestyle of the vagabundo, as well as a celebration of rural Spain and its forgotten communities. It reminds us of the value of slowing down and finding connection with others, and the beauty that can be found in taking life one step at a time.

About the Author

British writer Mark Eveleigh bases himself between Bali and South Africa when he’s not chasing travel stories for the likes of the BBC, CNN, National Geographic Traveller and The Telegraph. He spent 16 years living in Spain and returned recently to fulfil his ambition to hike coast-to-coast – the long way – across the country with a backpack and his trusty hammock.

My Review

People have been walking across Spain for hundreds of years. The vast majority are following the well trodden pilgrim trails to add meaning to their personal faith; the Camino de Santiago is probably the best known of them.

Eveleigh wants to walk through Spain, but not on a pilgrimage. He is partly inspired by Laurie Lee but mostly by a nomadic vagabundo he met a number of years ago on a train, This man followed the same route that took him through the same towns and villages every two years.

Eveleigh has just passed his 5oth and felt the urge to travel again. He heads back to Spain where he spent 20 years of his life. He chose his route from Gibraltar to Estach de Bares and decided to walk over the summer when the daylight hours were the longest. He was going to go super lightweight with a hammock to sleep in and a plastic cover should there be any rain.

It felt a bit reckless but it was something that he needed to get out of his system.

Passing through the border between Gibraltar and Spain gave the first Brexit benefit as he now had to have his passport stamped. It would be 1.5 million steps before he would see the sea again. The walk out of Gibraltar felt uphill for the first 100 Km. One of his first mornings in Spain he wakes in his hammock that is tied between two olive trees and all he can hear is the sounds of bells and goats bleating.

Some of the distances that he undertakes each day are huge, he mentions reaching 43 km on some days and at one point in the book he says that he has walked nine marathons in eleven days. These long hikes each day mean that even the top notch boots he has can’t stop the plethora of blisters on both feet. Couple that with walking through one of the hottest summers on record in Europe, where the temperatures would kill thousands.

He had a routine of walking early in the morning, finding shade in the hottest part of the day, and walking later into the evening. The search for water would be constant. He finds some amazing places to each for what sounds like pennies, but often turns up just as they have stopped serving food for the day!

I really liked this book. Eveleigh is a generous man taking time to find out a little of the people he meets and places he passes through. I don’t think he slowed down for this walk at all; he was covering huge distances each day on his trek. I liked his minimal approach so he could get as close to the hobo lifestyle as he could, but he did have the luxury of a bank card, which most hobo’s wouldn’t have. IT is quite amusing in parts, I particularly thought his account of being caught singing in the middle of the road by a peloton was hilarious. Well worth reading.

Don’t forget to visit the other blogs on the blog tour

Buy this at your local independent bookshop. If you’re not sure where your nearest is then you can find one here

My thanks to Anne from Random Tours for the copy of the book to read.

Some other books on Spain I can recommend:

Slow Trains Around Spain by Tom Chesshyre
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee
As I Walked Out Through Spain in Search of Laurie Lee by P. D. Murphy
My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure by Alastair Humphreys

Utter, Earth by Issac Yuen

4 out of 5 stars

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

If you are anything like me and have grown up (or allegedly grown up that is), with David Attenborough’s marvellous and sometimes magical documentaries on the world we live in, then you will probably be fascinated by the natural world like me. There are hundreds of books out there on nature and they vary from detailed academic tomes to books that tell a more personal story and how people have discovered how nature is a crutch that they have come to rely on.

And then there is this book, Utter, Earth.

It is unlike any other natural history book that I have ever read. It is a series of tongue-in-cheek essays about all manner of subjects from the naming of your progeny, to what happens when you rub a freshly plucked parrot with a poison frog, what the difference is between shoals and schools and which beetle can survive being run over. I particularly liked the final section of the book where Yuen expands his thoughts on all sorts of living creatures.

I really enjoyed the wired and strangely engaging read on the natural world. It is full of wry and humorous observations on the quirks and wonders on this planet we are on. Reading this is a easy way to collect the weird and wonderful facts that you can drop into conversations when people are least expecting it! It’s a great book.

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