Author: Paul (Page 177 of 188)

Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook by Peter Cook
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

In his time, Peter Cook was one of the funniest men around, he was a little before my time, but I remember him with Dudley Moore. In his time, he was considered one of the great comedy writers, even though he had a reputation for idleness. He wrote countless skits and articles and was a leading figure in the boom in satire in the 1960’s. This collection draws from his very earliest works, including his best known sketches a selection of his columns that appeared in the Daily Mail, Private Eye and the Evening Standard and even includes some TV pieces that have never been seen in print before.

There are some very funny sketches in here, and I was chuckling as I was reading every now and again. The ones with Dud as Derek & Clive, two blokes putting the world to rights are hilarious and are my particular favourites. Some of the others he wrote are now very dated, mostly because the world has moved on and these were relevant then. I skim read it at times as it got a bit tedious; really one for the collector of his works.

View all my reviews

Walking through Spring: An English Journey by Graham Hoyland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Partly inspired by a memory of his father saying that spring moved at walking pace across the country and that he had missed a number of English springs whilst being stuck up some of the highest mountains in the world, Hoyland had the idea of following it as it moves up and across the country from the first day of spring on the south coast to the Scottish border a few weeks later. The warmth that the season brings turns a monotone landscape into one that is fresh, green and bursting with life.

Starting on the beautiful Dorset coast at Christchurch, Hoyland and his wife planned their route following where possible the ancient footpaths that criss-cross the countryside. He marked each mile along the paths and hawthorn hedgerows with the planting of an acorn, noting the GPS position so they could return one day to check progress. Each day that they walked brought the delights of spring to them; bluebells, animals emerging from hibernation, the arrival of the swifts and cuckoos and the way that all life blooms.

There are some amusing parts in the book, he has a knack of getting a little bit lost on a regular basis and he is not afraid to speak his mind either with forceful opinions an subjects as diverse as HS2, the perils of industrial farming and the loss of so many of the birds and animals over the years. It is packed full of interesting facts and details as he draws from nature writers, poets and artists as well as architects and engineers that have been inspired, changed and made their living from the countryside. It has a great bibliography too with lots of relevant quotes and recommendations on other books to read. Not only is this a most enjoyable stroll through the English countryside at the walking speed, I really liked that he made an effort to give something back too by planting the acorns along his route. Even though it is not as lyrical as Macfarlane and Deakin it is still well worth reading.

View all my reviews

The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Arthur Rowe has just got out of prison having served time for the mercy killing of his very ill wife and now living in London, mid-way through the blitz. A trip to the local fete is a welcome change from the recent trauma in his life and he wanders round the stalls. He has a go at guessing the weight of the cake, before entering a fortune tellers tent. She tells him what the correct weight of the cake is, so he enters a second time and wins it. Leaving the fete with the cake, the organisers try to stop him leaving with it, saying there has been a mistake. He refuses and takes the cake home.

So begins the most traumatic phase in Rowe’s life. The cake contains something that certain people really want back and they are prepared to go to almost any length to hunt him down and retrieve it. Even in his fragile mental state, he realises what is going on and he starts to discover just who is hunting him. Slowly he discovers more of the sinister conspiracy but he can’t go to the police as he is not totally sure of the facts or who is behind it.

Greene has put you in the character of Rowe, revealing limited details as the book unfolds and his position gets more and more perilous. It is a sparsely written book with a clever but bewildering plot. The tension from the war and the situation he finds himself in add to the drama too. I don’t think that I can count it as one of my favourites of his though, as it was a bit too convoluted, but I’d like to see the film version. 2.5 stars overall.

View all my reviews

The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt by Andrea Wulf
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When you think of scientists that have formed the way that we think about world around us, the names that tend to come to mind are Newton, Darwin, Wallace, Davy and Einstein. In the mid-19th Century though the most famous scientist in the world was a man called Alexander von Humboldt, a man very few people have ever heard of these days.

von Humboldt had a fascination of everything around him; he studied plants, geology, volcanos, animal and the stars the weather and the movement of the planets. Everything fascinated him and he went on major expeditions to South America and across the Russian steppe to China, and bought back detailed notebooks and trunks stuffed full of specimens and samples. He was one of the first scientists to consider the interconnectedness of all natural things, noticing that climate zones were similar on completely different continents, something that didn’t really gain traction until Lovelock’s Gaia theory and his observations led him to predict our effects on the climate decades before anyone else.

He was the author of around thirty volumes that became best sellers and were translated into multiple languages. His lyrical writing not only inspired countless other scientists to further their studies, but they stimulated artists and poets to explore their own natural world. He wrote and recived thousands of letters a year, corresponding with American presidents, like Thomas Jefferson and iconic figures Simón Bolívar. Even though he was from Prussia and was a member of King Frederick William III court, he felt his spiritual home was in the intellectual melting pot of Paris, even though he was sometimes considered an enemy by Napoleon. The King insisted he return home, much to his disappointment, but he still spent some of the year there, meeting and talking with fellow scientists.

Wulf’s book is a captivating account of the life and achievements of von Humboldt. Just a glance at the comprehensive notes you can see it has taken an immense amount of research to write this book, but it is still very readable without being dry and academic. She has successfully managed to bring to life a scientist whose influence on our understanding of the natural world can still be seen today.

View all my reviews

Quartz and Feldspar: Dartmoor – A British Landscape in Modern Times by Matthew Kelly
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Dartmoor is an elemental place. The largest area of granite in the country is bleak yet beautiful and on a sunny day it can really show its glorious side. But bad weather here can be a killer, fog and rain sweeping in from that Atlantic can reduce visibility in no time at all. It is one of the reasons that the army still use the area for training. It is a place that has seen human activity for millennia too, there are tombs and enclosures scattered all over the National Park as well as evidence of people using the land to scratch a living.

It is home to the Dartmoor pony, an infamous prison and has inspired writers who have used the brooding melancholy to great effect, most famously in The Hound of the Baskervilles. It first became a National park in 1951 and is made up of common land as well as substantial tracts owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the MOD parts are owned by water companies the National Trust and the Forestry Commission. These various stakeholders have all sort of claims on the land, but the National Park Authority tries to control the various conflicting wishes.

It is not a bad book, but the emphasis is firmly looking at all the horse trading and political manoeuvring that had taken place from the formation of the park until the Dartmoor Commons Act that secured public access to the park, even on private land. I felt that there was not enough on the geology of this fascinating place and I would have preferred much more on the history on those that have used the landscape for ritual and other purposes. The political side is an element in the story of this place, but sadly it overwhelmed the book.

View all my reviews