Halfman, Halfbook

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

3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Uisge beatha, or the water of life as whisky is sometimes known, is a glorious drink, though too much of it can have the opposite effect. This drink is intrinsically linked to the peat bogs of Scotland and Ireland and the subtle flavours that it imbues to the raw spirit is intensified with the dual magic of oak and time.

There is a lot of myths behind the symbiose of peat and whisky and in those swirling myths are facts, if you know where to look. Mike Billett is one of those people who know where to look and more importantly what to look for and where to find it. He is ideally qualified too, he is a peatland scientist deeply embedded in the way that the lifecycle of the peat bog.

This book is a mix of travelogue, science, natural history and the history of whisky. Billet is an engaging author whose knowledge of the subject fully understands how this brown fuel makes the drink what it is today. He gives a good insight into the distilling process too, he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the distilleries and their water sources and their maltings. He has a boundless enthusiasm for whisky in all its iterations.

I really liked this book. The mix of genres works well as a cohesive narrative. It is a book to be read with a large dram of your favourite whisky and luxuriate in how a damp brown moss can have so much influence over this spirit.

4 out of 5 stars

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

It felt like her life was unravelling. Coffey had split with her boyfriends, her father had just been diagnosed with cancer and she had decided to quit her job. All this just as the pandemic started. IT was this large amount of free time and the discovery of a translation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson that opened her eyes to the story and gave her the inkling of an idea.

The urge to travel burned inside her. But this was the time of lockdowns, no international travel and only being allowed out from home to shop and for an hours exercise. It wasn’t going to get to the Mediterranean any time soon…

Later in 202 as the initial wave of infections dropped, the opportunity to travel opened up again. She spoke to her father about her plans and he encouraged her to go. She was finally off to get some sun.

She arrived in Sicily but wasn’t intending to stay there for long. Rather this was to be a six-month journey around the region visiting and staying on the tiny islands that were thought to be the locations mentioned in the Odyssey, the Aeolian Sea, the Adriatic coast and the Balearic islands.

She had managed to secure some freelance work and this as going to give her some security and finance some of the travel costs. It would also give her the means to indulge in the new life she is creating for herself. She swims daily in the cold Mediterranean (it probably isn’t as cold as the North Sea!), enjoying her morning espresso and making the most of her life there.

It gives her time to reflect on what went wrong with her relationship and she speaks regularly to her father as he undergoes treatment. They have always got on well, though it could be strained at times. But the medical care he is getting is not working well and he is not improving. Coffey will have to make a decision on whether she needs to head home to see him and if she will be allowed as international travel is shut down again.

I did like this book a lot, but elements of it made for hard reading. The emotive account of her father’s battle with cancer was particularly tough to read and brought back memories of my experiences. That said the travelogue elements of the book were really good. Coffey has a way of writing that is quite evocative, she captures the moment really well and it made me want to be sitting in the same café enjoying a morning coffee and watching the sea sparkle. The link between the travelling and the Odyssey as she traced the islands was done well too.

So would I recommend this? Yes. It made me want to visit these places and discover them for myself and that I think, is the primary aim of a travel book.

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.

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.

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.

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.